At a recent event held at a Four Seasons hotel, an audience member for my keynote presentation came up following my program. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Jerry – and, boy, do I have a story for you!”
“Yesterday, my wife and I were dining at the breakfast buffet here at the Four Seasons,” Jerry told me. “As we proceeded down the line, I just happened to mention to my wife that I wished they had blueberries available. Don’t get me wrong — they had a beautiful array of fruit. It’s just that there weren’t any blueberries, which are my favorite!”
“Imagine my surprise,” Jerry continued, “when mere moments later, a Four Seasons team member came to our table with a bowl of the most beautiful blueberries you could imagine! A young lady happened to overhear my conversation with my wife. She told me, ‘We don’t want you to be disappointed with ANY part of your experience at Four Seasons!'”
As Jerry and I continued the conversation, he was supremely impressed with two aspects of this encounter:
She listened to the customer.
She took action to ensure the customer received exactly what he wanted.
Let’s examine both steps:
First, listening to the customer. This Four Seasons team member was tuned in to what Jerry wanted and needed. She didn’t just hear the words. She listened to the emotion behind them. Because she listened, she knew that blueberries were important to him and acted on it.
Listening is critical because it communicates to the customer that they are essential and that their wants and needs are a priority. How many times have you been in a customer service situation where you feel like you’re not being heard? We, as customers, feel like our voices are falling on deaf ears all too often. Too often, we as customer service professionals, stop at listening. We need to go the extra mile and take action to ensure that our customers receive what they want.
When we take the time to listen to our customers, it shows that we care about them and their experience.
Second, taking action to ensure the customer received exactly what he wanted. This Four Seasons team member not only listened but also took action to ensure Jerry’s happiness. She knew that blueberries were important to him, so she brought him a bowl of them.
Consider what the alternatives were for the employee —
She could have been daydreaming or thinking about something else about her job and not tuned in to the customer.
She could have thought, “We have LOTS of great fruit…and it’s not enough for this guy?”
She could have told her manager, “By the way, a customer noted there weren’t blueberries. Maybe we should put some out tomorrow.”
Instead, she took ownership of the customer’s modest identification of a missing element.
Educating your team to own the problem and create the solution is critical.
Taking ownership of customer issues and being proactive in solving them is another hallmark of delivering a difference. Often, the small things that we do for our customers make the most significant impact.
Jerry’s story is an excellent reminder of how important it is to listen to our customers and take action on their behalf. When we do this, we deliver an Ultimate Customer Experience. What Jerry experienced was a great example of a UCE. His Four Seasons team member went the extra mile to ensure that he received exactly what he wanted.
Here’s an additional aspect — most of us know that this isn’t a unique experience for Four Seasons customers — it’s part of their DNA.
As my pal, Joe Calloway often discusses, most companies share an experience wildly out of the norm. They want you to know about the employee who walked a mile through the snow to be certain that a customer got their pack of chewing gum.
The problem is that the same store doesn’t do the basic blocking and tackling, which ensures that the little things are done right for every customer, every time.
Remember, customers do not want us to make it right. They want us to GET it right!
Because of the actions of this employee, Jerry left feeling appreciated and delighted with his experience at the Four Seasons. In fact, he was so impressed, he felt compelled to share his story with me — and now, I’m sharing it with you!
This is vitally important! When customers share your success stories, they become your advocates in a crowded marketplace. (And what business doesn’t want more advocates?)
When your team (and you) can deliver this level of customer experience, you’re well on your way to becoming ICONIC!
When people think of success — whether business success or personal success — most usually think first of the logical factors involved. These include financial literacy, marketing skills, or management abilities.
When my first business book, ALL Business is Show Business, was released twenty years ago, my assertion that there was a significant element required for success that was almost always overlooked was met with considerable criticism.
The missing factor is EMOTION.
My point in my book was that just as a movie or television episode attempts to make you laugh, cry, become angry, or scared, emotion plays a crucial role in all fields of business, as well! Being able to understand how other people feel and being astute at influencing emotion are essential aspects of success in every field.
While intellect is critical when considering what makes a successful company or career, it’s still only half the picture. The rest of the picture involves understanding human emotion and communicating with other people — both customers and employees — on their emotional level, rather than just their intellectual level.
An old proverb says, “the hand that rules the mind also rules the world.”
Emotion often determines how people think, what they do or don’t do, and why they act in a certain way. Because emotion plays such a critical role in success, a mastery of the basic techniques of emotion management is crucial to business success. The real key to understanding emotion is recognizing its effect on the customer or employee decision-making process.
You’ll obviously become more successful if you can motivate other people to take action — whether it’s buying your product or becoming more productive as employees.
This past week, Dr. Sigal Barsade passed away at the young age of just 56. As the New York Times reported, “Dr. Barsade, a professor of management at the Wharton School, the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, was a pioneer in what organizational psychologists call the affective revolution: the study of how emotions, not just behavior and decision-making, shape a workplace culture, and in turn how they affect an organization’s performance.”
If emotion is effectively used, it greatly benefits the bottom line of any company.
As the Times article also reported,” ‘For a long time, emotions were viewed as noise, a nuisance, something to be ignored,’ Barsade told MIT Sloan Management Review in 2020. ‘But one thing we now know after more than a quarter-century of research is that emotions are not noise — rather, they are data. They reveal not just how people feel, but also what they think and how they will behave.'”
This is a crucial realization. Successful businesspeople look at emotion as a source of insight and realize that emotion can be influenced and leveraged positively, like every other resource in the workplace.
In summary:
Being able to understand how other people feel and being astute at influencing emotion are both indispensable aspects of success in every field.
You’ll obviously become more successful if you can motivate other people to take action — whether it’s buying your product or becoming more productive as employees.
Emotion often determines how people think, what they do or don’t do, and why they act in a certain way.
Using emotion effectively greatly benefits the bottom line of any company.
Emotion is not noise — instead, it is data. It reveals how people feel, what they think, and how they behave.
Because — just as it was true twenty years ago — ALL business IS “show business.”
Improving the customer experience your organization delivers is difficult. If you want to create enhanced customer experiences, it is critical that your team understands your customers. That sounds pretty obvious — but how does an organization make that happen?
It’s clear that expectations should be set during the interview process, but how can you ensure that all your employees understand what is expected of them?
One way to do this is by instituting a training program that educates your team members on the customer experience. This should include standards of excellence they are expected to meet, as well as how they can exceed expectations.
Another way to set expectations is through recognition programs. When employees feel appreciated for their work, it encourages them to continue exceeding expectations. “Behavior rewarded is behavior repeated,” as my friend, Dr. Michael LeBoeuf has famously written.
For example, at superior hotel chains like Ritz-Carlton or Fairmont, guests expect to receive a level of experience that many employees have not. If that’s the case, how do you educate your team members to deliver what your guests assume they will receive?
Answer: You provide them the opportunity to participate in the customer experience. These companies encourage their employees to become guests at other properties in the system through extraordinary discount pricing and privileges. This is presented as part of the package that prospective employees discover during the application and interview process. Not only is it a benefit that attracts prospects, but it also sets the expectation that their organizations have a high standard that employees must attain.
Recently Door Dash instituted a new policy. According to Nexstar News, they “recently announced a company program that tells employees – including engineers, managers and top executives – to make one food delivery (or “dash”) a month. It turns out, not everyone was interested in performing the company’s eponymous task.
“I didn’t sign up for this, there was nothing in the offer letter/job description about this,” a post from an employee about this policy read.
The problem isn’t just that an employee doesn’t want to exceed what they “signed up for” — it’s that:
Door Dash failed to set this expectation for their prospective employees in the interview process
organizations are hiring people who do not want to exceed expectations for customers
employees are not being adequately educated on the importance of the customer experience
Here’s how you can overcome this challenging situation:
expectations should be set during the interview process
educate your team members by instituting a training program that trains them on the customer experience
another way to set expectations is through dynamic recognition programs
when employees feel appreciated for the work they do when it encourages them to continue exceeding expectations
How do expectations we have of people influence the performance they deliver? “The Pygmalion Effect” is the name given to the phenomenon where expectations about someone’s performance actually cause that person to live up to those expectations. So, if we expect more from people, they’re likely to deliver more.
On the flip side, “The Golem Effect” is when our expectations of someone’s poor performance influence them to perform worse than we anticipated!
Are you setting positive expectations from the onset of the onboarding process? Are you making the customer experience an integral component in EVERY potential employee’s communication with you from the start of your engagement with them?
Remember:
expectations about someone’s performance cause that person to live up (or down) to your expectations
our expectations of someone’s poor performance will lead to them performing worse than anticipated
however, if we expect more from people, they’re likely to deliver more!
(Thanks to my friend, Derek Sweeney of The Sweeney Agency in Toronto, for bringing this to my attention!)
Flight attendants attacked by passengers. Retail clerks shouted down by customers. Almost every day, we watch videos posted of outrageous behavior by customers toward those employees seeking to serve them. It used to be those angry customers who would seldom — if ever — physically or verbally assault frontline employees.
It’s getting to the point where angry customers threaten the well-being of our employees and customers!
Now angry customers seem less concerned about the consequences of their actions. Often, angry customers presume they can take out their anger on frontline employees who seem powerless and vulnerable. These customers evidently believe the company will not support that employee or file charges against them.
While angry customers may feel they can get away with their bad behavior, they may be causing your other customers to lose the superior customer experience you provide.
It’s increasingly difficult for any company to maintain good customer experiences when angry customers are attacking their employees. Companies are losing customers by the droves due to angry customers who have no consideration for others. Your employees are leaving because they don’t want to put up with the stress of dealing with the venom — and your good customers might be leaving because they are reticent about experiencing some angry idiot making a scene. (And perhaps your employees are so stressed from dealing with angry customers that their level of service to your good customers has declined.)
In today’s pandemic marketplace, angry customers are becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.
To deal with angry customers, here is a five-step plan that provides employees insight into coping with angry customers. The following are those steps:
Don’t go it alone. It’s not uncommon for customer service agents to be “alienated” by angry customers, leaving them to feel as if they’re all alone against angry customers. That’s not the case at all. Companies must recognize that angry customers are spreading like germs, and they must do everything possible to help employees not feel alienated or alone in dealing with them.
Employees now have the ability to tap into online customer service communities where they can ask questions of other customers who have dealt with angry customers. Additionally, they can ask their managers for help in dealing with angry customers. This means you need to be having conversations with your leaders to ensure they back your team members against angry customers and to help coach and train them on how to best handle these potentially explosive situations.
Ask yourself the right question. It’s not uncommon for angry customers to hurl profane or abusive language at employees, leaving them feeling angry and defensive themselves. That’s the wrong attitude to take. Employees should instead think about angry customers as angry people rather than angry customers.
What are angry people angry about? What are their concerns, fears, and worries? How can employees help angry people achieve some sort of resolution so they can move on with what they need to do in life?
Put yourself in their shoes. Angry customers lash out at employees because they feel angry, upset, and frustrated with their situations. They lash out in the wrong place by attacking customer service agents who have nothing to do with their problems or concerns.
Employees should realize that angry customers are angry about something – maybe even angry about feeling angry. Think of it this way: angry customers are mad because they are angry about being angry. Employees should ask themselves whether they’ve ever felt angry about being angry.
If the answer is yes, now they can better understand how angry customers feel and why they lash out at customer service agents, who have nothing to do with their problems in life.
Listen carefully. Listening is one of the most challenging things to do, especially when angry customers are yelling at employees. Listening requires deep concentration on what angry customers are saying.
Employees should be open-minded and actively ask themselves whether angry customers have a point. Maybe angry customers don’t really know why they’re so frustrated, but they’re acting out because that’s the only way they know how to deal with their feelings.
Check your ego at the door. It’s not uncommon for angry customers to resort to name-calling and other forms of verbal abuse when talking with customer service agents, leaving your employees feeling angry and upset in return. That’s normal human behavior of those who lash out at others because they are angry.
Employees should not take angry customers’ words personally, however. They can’t be upset about angry customers being abusive with them – that’s too much anger for anyone to handle. Instead, employees should focus on the feelings behind uncivil words yelled by angry customers acting out of irrational emotions.
In other words, angry customers are often that way because they are angry at themselves for being so distressed. Employees should consider whether they’ve ever been irritated about being upset before responding to these customers who are acting out of their own overwhelming feelings.
There’s no excuse for this type of customer behavior. It should not happen. However, it does — and much too frequently in the real world.
Our job is to help our team deal with this challenge in a manner that de-escalates an emotional situation while maintaining a superior experience for your customers who are behaving in a way that should take place in any professional situation.
When you stop to think about it, the qualities embodied by the spirit of the holidays — a giving attitude, an appreciation expressed to others, and gratitude for your blessings — define how we should treat our customers and team members EVERY day throughout the year.
Giving Attitude
A “giving attitude” is best expressed as the perspective that puts the needs of others above your own. It’s the attitude of being willing to help, to give freely of yourself, and to think of others before yourself. We should bring this spirit to our relationships with both our customers and team members.
When we are open to giving more than we receive, it creates a feeling of joy and abundance. This is the attitude we want our team members and customers to experience. We should think of ways to give more, treat our customers differently, and make them feel special.
Instead of focusing on what we want or need, try shifting your perspective to giving freely to others without expecting anything in return.
Appreciation
Another aspect of the holiday spirit is appreciation. Naturally, we appreciate our customers. However, appreciation also means thankfulness for the team members who make our businesses run. They are the people who serve our customers, package and ship our products, produce and fulfill our orders, deliver customer service, and keep everything organized behind the scenes.
Expressing appreciation to our team members is the only way to show that we value them and their contributions. Keeping it to yourself does no good for anyone! A simple “thank you” can mean a lot, but it’s also important to show appreciation in ways that will be meaningful and memorable. Everyone likes to know that their efforts matter, so take the time to make your team feel valued.
Gratitude for Our Blessings
Finally, gratitude for our blessings is of utmost importance. If we want to grow in the future, we must appreciate how the lessons of the past – good and bad — have brought us to this point. We should also be grateful for our current situation, even if it is not ideal.
Our hearts open when we are grateful, and we become more compassionate. We see the good in life and in others, and this transforms how we interact with them.
Ideas Into Action
To put the spirit of holidays into action, consider these four questions:
What does appreciation look like in my organization?
How can I demonstrate appreciation for my team’s past efforts and current contributions?
What can I do to uniquely express gratitude to my customers through unexpected acts of appreciation?
How can I increase the joy and abundance in my organization to enhance our organizational culture during the coming year?
When we embody the spirit of the holidays every day in the coming year, we prepare for creating distinction, no matter the circumstances of the economy, pandemic, or unforeseen challenges.
Apply these insights, and you’ve planted the right seeds for ICONIC achievement in 2022!
(And please keep watching here! We want to partner with you to enhance your professional and organizational growth. Our consulting/coaching/training business is limited to a few select clients each year. I would love to have a conversation with you about how we can work together to help you achieve the distinction you deserve in the coming year!)
Employee happiness is a critical factor when it comes to excellent customer service. Employees who are happy with their work — and how their employers treat them — are more likely to care about their customers. This factor is because when employees are treated with respect and engaged, they naturally want what is best for their company.
If employees are happy, it means they will be willing to go above and beyond for their customers — which in turn leads to more delighted customers.
The employee-customer relationship is an essential factor in successful customer service; when companies put their employees first, they find success.
What do employee happiness, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction all have in common? Granted, they are all very similar. However, employee happiness is perhaps most critical.
Employee happiness is the employee’s overall contentment for everything related to their job, including how they’re treated by management and customers alike.
Here’s an aspect easily overlooked: employee happiness has a much more significant impact than employee satisfaction.
Satisfaction is just the employee’s opinion of their current job; happiness means employee contentment for all aspects of their work-life, not just their specific job assignments. Employee happiness means employee engagement.
Here are three ways to improve employee happiness:
The first step to employee happiness is that there must be buy-in from leadership. If leadership doesn’t care about employee happiness, it won’t go beyond something as minimal as creating a flimsy employee satisfaction survey.
It is incumbent to communicate with employees how their opinions are vital for improvement and what changes are in process due to their input.
Decide to make employee happiness/employee engagement an organizational priority. It’s impossible to have employee happiness without employee engagement. A company cannot be engaged with its employees if managers aren’t showing constant commitment to their teams.
Employees believe that if their manager doesn’t care about the happiness of team members, how can the rest of the organization?
Offer benefits and compensation that matter. Employee benefits and compensation are essential aspects for employees to feel as though they are compensated fairly for their work.
It’s difficult to feel valued and under-compensated at the same time. Make sure your wages and benefits also display your commitment to your team.
The more employee happiness there is within an organization, the better the workplace culture will be for everyone involved!
