[00:00:02] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH.
[00:00:07] For organizations looking to enhance their customer relationships, this is Stepping Up Service.
[00:00:16] Hello everyone and welcome to Stepping Up Service here on TheMesh.tv. Stepping Up Service is our podcast show
[00:00:27] dedicated to the world of customer service. How to deliver outstanding customer service to your clients,
[00:00:34] within your organization, to coworkers, vendors, any other groups you may come into contact with,
[00:00:39] regardless of what size organization or type organization you are.
[00:00:43] My name is Alan Jackson. I am the Chief Customer Officer with Biveris Incorporated.
[00:00:48] And with me is Ed Gagnon who is with Customer Service Solutions. As always, my partner in crime,
[00:00:54] my cohort here and how are you doing?
[00:00:58] I'm doing great. How are you doing Alan?
[00:01:00] I'm just fine. Just fine. Happy to have you here again as always.
[00:01:04] We always have a good time taking one aspect or topic regarding customer service,
[00:01:09] or maybe the way the world of customer service is changing.
[00:01:12] We take that topic. Ed's normally got some great insights to share and we pick it apart and go through some examples.
[00:01:19] And then at the end of the show we always end up with our story of the month.
[00:01:23] This is an idea of a story that something that has happened to us just in the last 30 days since we last talked.
[00:01:29] It can be a positive, it can be a negative customer service experience.
[00:01:32] Something we want to relay and share that hopefully will resonate with the audience
[00:01:37] and kind of connect the dots on some things we've talked about in the past.
[00:01:40] Ed, I didn't even ask you before we started hitting the record button here.
[00:01:43] Have you got a story to tell or can you have a story within the next half hour before we get to the end?
[00:01:49] I definitely have a story so I'm prepared.
[00:01:52] Perfect. Great. Well, I do as well. So we will look forward to sharing those stories at the end of the episode as always.
[00:01:58] But before we do that, we have our main topic to discuss here.
[00:02:01] And Ed, you sent me some information about this topic and it is something I hate saying it's something I am familiar with
[00:02:09] because by saying I'm familiar with it, basically it's saying that yes, things do go wrong sometimes in the business setting.
[00:02:17] The topic is being good when things go bad.
[00:02:21] And the way you kind of brief me on this a little bit is this idea of, you know, we're running businesses and things are going to go wrong sometimes.
[00:02:29] Sometimes our company's reputation is really based on how we fix things that have gone wrong.
[00:02:35] And you don't want to be in that situation but sometimes that's just the case.
[00:02:38] So Ed, I'm hoping maybe you can talk us through companies or types of industries where this may apply more than others
[00:02:44] and also what are some things we need to think about or consider doing when these situations happen.
[00:02:49] Why is it important to take so much stock and how we handle customer service situations when they go bad?
[00:02:55] So, yes.
[00:02:56] Talk me through your thoughts on this.
[00:02:58] I'm anxious to hear your ideas on this.
[00:03:01] Well, sometimes it's easiest to conceptualize something that we don't normally think about by conceptualizing something that we normally do think about.
[00:03:10] So before we get into how do we make sure we're being good when things go bad because some customers and some industries really evaluate us based on how we resolve issues.
[00:03:23] Let's first start with something that we're all familiar talking about as it relates to customer service.
[00:03:28] We've all heard the terms you have to delight your customers or you want to create the wow kind of experience.
[00:03:35] So, Adam, when you think of industries or businesses or companies that really try to create a wow experience or really try to delight their customers,
[00:03:46] what types of businesses pop to mind or what types of industries pop to mind where they're trying to create this wow kind of experience?
[00:03:53] You know, when you say the word wow experience, I mean I can think either a specific examples of companies that I just know that we've brought up as examples of companies that just seem to really get it.
[00:04:04] I mean, I think of Apple as kind of one of those wow experience companies where everything from the packaging, the box that comes in, their customer service reputation, overall quality of product.
[00:04:16] I mean, it is just it is meant to inspire and get people excited about their products.
[00:04:22] So I see that.
[00:04:23] I see some forms of retail.
[00:04:25] You know, we talked about Zappos.
[00:04:26] We even Amazon to some degree delivers just that really pleasant, really delightful experience.
[00:04:33] I've seen some restaurants that do it really well.
[00:04:35] I think restaurants have an opportunity to deliver a wow experience.
[00:04:39] So, you know, there's a lot of a lot of those that people go in, I think expecting to be just be given a really high level experience altogether.
[00:04:49] Whether it's entertainment based hospitality based, you know, technology product based or so on.
[00:04:56] Yeah, those are excellent examples and it's interesting because a lot of those are hospitality based or, you know, eating out.
[00:05:02] You know, it's almost like the disposable income oriented experiences or those where you have to pay premium or something like that.
[00:05:09] There are some industries, however, that you look at and you say the water company.
[00:05:16] You know, I'm just looking for the water company to just keep my water running and not overcharge me.
[00:05:21] I'm not looking for the wow and just hoping that there are not busted pipes that happen.
[00:05:26] That's a good point.
[00:05:27] You know, in the middle of winter that my hot water heater doesn't have some major issue.
[00:05:31] And all of a sudden now I have this big emergency because my house is heated by the hot water heater or maybe organizations that are building structures and buildings or the renovating homes and they're having to go to a governmental agency to get approval for their plans, get approval for inspections.
[00:05:50] They're not expecting a wow from that plan reviewer or a wow from that electrical inspector.
[00:05:55] They just want you to be there on time.
[00:05:57] They want you to tell them what passed or what didn't, what they need to do to rectify it and quickly, quickly, quickly bring me on to the next step.
[00:06:05] So some industries definitely the wow, the delight applies in other industries.
[00:06:10] Customers are just looking for you to not mess things up or to get things done on time or to not waste their time.
[00:06:18] Definitely a very different kind of focus.
[00:06:21] So are there other industries or businesses that you've interacted with Alan where your focus is not necessarily to be delighted by them, but you just want them to do what they're supposed to do?
[00:06:33] Or if there's a problem, just go ahead and fix my problem.
[00:06:35] That's what you're mainly concerned with.
[00:06:37] Well I think about businesses that, I mean, it's stimming a little bit of what you were saying where it's a little bit of maybe they're in the business of helping fix things that are going wrong already.
[00:06:46] So in other words, you don't want to have an experience with these guys because if you're having an experience with them that's basically saying something's gone wrong that are there to fix.
[00:06:55] I think about like a towing service.
[00:06:57] I mean, you know, I don't expect a wow experience from a towing service.
[00:07:01] I just, I want to make sure that they're quick and they take care of the car and they don't ever charge me and it's handled as quickly and efficiently as possible.
[00:07:08] So I think about something like that.
[00:07:10] I think about something like you mentioned water and I think a lot of utilities are kind of the same way.
[00:07:15] You know, my power, I get a bill.
[00:07:18] I just know that when I turn on my lights they work.
[00:07:21] There's really not a lot of wiggle room for doing anything over and above what my expectations are there.
[00:07:28] So I can imagine those kind of industries it's it may be a challenge to think about how how to not only accelerate customer service but how do you make it as strong as possible when you're dealing with situations that maybe customers don't have.
[00:07:40] They don't want to be in the first place, you know, right.
[00:07:43] Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:07:44] I mean, even these customers are looking at the situation and they're thinking from the perspective of how do I get this fixed quickly?
[00:07:51] Oh no, what else is going to go wrong?
[00:07:53] They're bringing a lot of negative emotions into the conversation.
[00:07:55] Whereas when you go to Disney, you're typically not bringing negative emotions into the situation.
[00:07:59] So, you know, the organization serving these customers in these ways are just trying to make sure they do what's right.
[00:08:05] They do it on a timely basis.
[00:08:07] They do it on a timely basis.
[00:08:08] So, you know, I think that's an issue they resolve it quickly when things go bad that they're good enough that the customer is going to be satisfied.
[00:08:15] And oftentimes the customer is going to end up judging that business whether by by virtue of the fact of did they fix it quickly?
[00:08:23] Were they responsive?
[00:08:25] Did they get the job done as opposed to did they wow me or delight me in the process.
[00:08:29] So, so I'm just I want to just kind of branch off of something you said a little earlier.
[00:08:33] Pretty obvious, but maybe it's just something clicking with me.
[00:08:36] This idea of disposable income and something that somebody is making a conscious choice to go out and spend money on whether it be for an experience or a product or service that they really won't versus something that they have to have.
[00:08:50] So, you know, you think about your power bill.
[00:08:52] You got to have your power.
[00:08:54] You've got to have water.
[00:08:55] You've got to have the tow truck if your car breaks down.
[00:08:57] You've got to have these other services.
[00:09:00] You know, but when you have money to burn on something and you say, I really want us to go to Disney World or I want us to go to this particular restaurant because I have this money and this is something I want us to do.
[00:09:12] Does that do you see where that's really kind of maybe a big distinction between where people have those expectations for that wow experience?
[00:09:19] Or I mean, is it is it maybe not as clear cut as that?
[00:09:22] Well, that's an excellent point to bring up because the first thing I was doing was differentiating that some businesses just inherently are there to wow and delight versus other businesses are just inherently there to just fix problems, resolve issues.
[00:09:37] Things are going bad when you walk in the door so the customer wants you to fix it.
[00:09:42] But even for those industries that are the industries that are relying on the disposable income, they're trying to create the wow experience, bad things can happen.
[00:09:50] We do research for a pro sports organization.
[00:09:54] So they put on events and for one of the events they put on we ran correlation analysis that said what out of all these attributes were having the customer evaluate all these things, the customer saying I'm satisfied or dissatisfied on which of those attributes tends to have a strong correlation to the overall satisfaction, overall willingness to recommend.
[00:10:14] And it was really interesting for one of our clients that one of the strongest drivers of overall customer satisfaction was how easy is it to leave.
[00:10:24] So the event ended, they were literally 60 80,000 people at the event the event ended and then they had to leave and you had 10s of thousands of cars.
[00:10:36] You had very poor egress you didn't have good directions the parking guides were rude.
[00:10:43] There was traffic on the highways if they could eventually get to the highway and it took two to two and a half hours for a lot of the fans to get home from this event.
[00:10:51] So when we did a statistical analysis of those that had a really terrible experience in that last impression that leaving impression ended up even in this disposable income sporting event, you know delight kind of experience.
[00:11:05] That the organization was shooting for those that had the bad last experience were the ones that tended to say their overall experience was bad as well.
[00:11:14] Wow, that's kind of crazy. I mean, I think you could have an outstanding event, a great game, a great environment people having a good time.
[00:11:23] And then it's the leaving which to some degree the organization has a little bit of control over probably the parking lanes and the way the park was routed.
[00:11:32] But for the most part it's a little bit out of their hand. You're trying to get a whole bunch of people back on the interstate or highways so that still impacts that experience.
[00:11:40] That's really interesting.
[00:11:41] Yeah, so do you point about the disposable income and people's expectations being higher when it's more of the premium service?
[00:11:47] That's very true. And it's interesting that we might think of an apple and it's all about the product or we might think of the Disney and it's all about the experience that you're there.
[00:11:59] But when the customer in their mind is evaluating the totality of the experience, it's from when they first engage that organization through the web on the phone until their home and the entire experience is done.
[00:12:11] And in some of those cases it could be a great product but the process is surrounding the product or so frustrating that they end up having a negative experience or it could be a great initial experience.
[00:12:21] But the exit part is so negative that they don't want to go back to that event, to that organization, to that business, to that experience in the future.
[00:12:30] Wow, that's really interesting. So I can see a little bit of distinction there.
[00:12:35] So we've got these different kind of organizations and you've got these organizations that may have a hard time with their service in general delivering a wow experience.
[00:12:44] That's just not really how their service is built.
[00:12:46] So they're the ones that have to deal with the situations that when things aren't going right or something that's going wrong for the customer or the customer is frustrated about what they're having to deal with with your company, right?
[00:12:58] Yeah. So what we're going to do to kind of illustrate that, what are some of those things that can go wrong is we're going to come up with some very specific examples that we're going to work through together here Alan.
[00:13:08] But prior to doing that I'm going to put you in charge of a business.
[00:13:12] Man, I love it when you give me either a job or put me in a quiz or game show. This is just, I am having a wow experience Ed. Thank you so much for letting me up a part of this.
[00:13:23] Excellent. Great. Well, what company do I get?
[00:13:25] I think we're still out on this podcast. You know, I hope I'm still good enough that you end with a good experience Alan.
[00:13:30] Well what company do I get to run right now today for at least the next 10 or 15 minutes?
[00:13:35] Well, we are recording in early December so obviously the business is going to be a retail store and it is called Alan's House of Holiday Delights.
[00:13:45] Oh man, I can already see in my head. I already got the logo designed and everything. So yes this is great. I'm excited.
[00:13:53] Yes. So your business among other things you sell decorations.
[00:13:57] Sure.
[00:13:58] You sell gifts. People can give to friends. You even do Alan some specialty catering.
[00:14:05] Oh, well I mean that is a market. If I was opening this shop that's definitely a market I would be exploring. So yes, that's a good move. That's a good move.
[00:14:13] Okay. So Alan now that you're so excited about this business we're actually going to kind of go down a track which is maybe not so positive.
[00:14:22] I thought you are a worry wart let's say and you want everything to be perfect.
[00:14:28] That doesn't sound at all like me.
[00:14:30] Okay, let's just assume that for now. But you're in Alan's House of Holiday Delights and I'm going to give you some different categories of things that are aspects of your business and you tell me what could go wrong with these things.
[00:14:43] You're selling decorations, you're selling gifts, you even do some specialty catering of meals events. So let's start with the products that you sell. You know those hard tangible items. What could go wrong with the decorations, the gifts, the hard items that you sell?
[00:14:59] The actual products I sell. Okay.
[00:15:01] I could receive a batch of really poor quality products from one of my vendors that I'm now faced to sell that that poor quality products I get that I am responsible for.
[00:15:15] I could run out of an extremely popular item. Let's say the commemorative 2016 Donald Trump tree ornament.
[00:15:25] Let's say it's a really popular item and it just runs out really, really quick. What am I going to do? I need more of those because everybody is asking about them.
[00:15:33] Yes.
[00:15:35] I could have a disorganization in my storeroom where even if I have the products it's either not managed well by my staff so things are kind of in disarray and things are not where they should be and it's hard for customers to find them.
[00:15:50] So those are three things I can see right off the bat that would be easy to see going wrong in this otherwise perfect store that I have.
[00:15:57] Yes, yes. So great job there. Let me ask you a couple other questions. Processes. How do you work with customers? What processes that you use in delivering service to customers could possibly go wrong?
[00:16:13] Well, let's see on the process of delivering to the customer. Well, if I'm shipping products to customers which I would imagine since I'm a kind of a global enterprises company you've been in charge of.
[00:16:24] Of course.
[00:16:26] I'm shipping products all over the world. You know, if my shipping lanes get clogged, I've got basically I don't have the right processes or people in place to get all the shipments out which means a lot of them are going to be late and get customers frustrated with late packages coming out.
[00:16:41] That's one. Yeah. I think from another process of getting these to the customers being short staffed in my store to handle checkout lines, to handle customer service questions, to handle returns, whatever it may be.
[00:16:58] I think just not having either the right staff or having not enough staff to handle those issues. Yes.
[00:17:05] Let's see. Beyond that. And that's plenty. That's good. Is that good? Is that good? I mean, there again, we're a pretty perfect company. So I can't think of too many things to go wrong.
[00:17:14] But I think those two are probably probably the ones that could. So. Okay. Well, and I have two other categories to think about. And the next one is your website.
[00:17:24] You know, with all this international business, you have tons of online orders, not necessarily for the catering. Although you do get some catering through the website locally, but you have tons of online orders.
[00:17:34] What could go wrong with your website? Well, the website could be hosted somewhere that has a lot of performance problems, which means the website is either slow or not working at times, especially in my busiest shopping season, which is right about now, late November, early December.
[00:17:52] So the website could be not working at all or people have frustrations getting to it. The website may not be properly communicating with my store room and supplies and what I actually have on stocks.
[00:18:06] In other words, we're selling things on the website that we don't really have the means to actually provide, you know, the goods in house.
[00:18:15] That's two good problems on the website there. You talk about all over the world, different countries. I mean, if I don't have good translation of languages for other countries, people are visiting the site and yet some of it or not all of it is translated to a language they can easily read, then I'm going to really kind of turn off a lot of customers and get them frustrated with that as well.
[00:18:37] Yes, and our very last category is your employees. What could go wrong with the attitudes of your employees or the knowledge of products and services and processes or their skill set? What could go wrong with your employees at this most important, busiest time of the year?
[00:18:57] Probably number one thing that could go wrong is you've got some employees that are more grinches than they are full of holiday cheer. And I think that would be a really big detriment to the customer service experience.
[00:19:09] So you got attitude of your employees. You've got knowledge, you know, there's a lot of nuance and Christmas decorations and I'm just here to tell you, you know, I didn't realize that even in Christmas ornaments.
[00:19:22] Oh, you've got different sizes. You got different shapes. You got all different makes and models. You got to know them all. And I think an employee needs to be on top of that.
[00:19:31] You don't want to have a clueless employee trying to answer questions during a very, very passionate time for a lot of people.
[00:19:37] Yes.
[00:19:39] And then I think too, just, I mean, it's just like any kind of holiday shop, you know, it's staffing. Staffing is so critical to make sure you've got enough people at the right time, especially this busy time of year.
[00:19:48] So if you've got an employee who maybe doesn't have the best work ethic showing up a little bit late, not on time all of a sudden we're short staffed for the busy shift. That could be a real issue as well.
[00:20:00] Well, Alan, you have a wonderful business. You're doing gangbusters.
[00:20:05] Thank you.
[00:20:06] I mean, how could Alan's House of Holiday delights not be successful?
[00:20:09] Yeah, these are all just hypothetical situations I'm bringing up. I don't anticipate any of them happening to my store.
[00:20:15] Of course you don't, but it's good that you've thought ahead. You planned this great business. You thought ahead. What could go wrong?
[00:20:23] Because if you try to think about what could go wrong, it gives you the opportunity to put potential solutions in place.
[00:20:30] So this is probably a good time for us to break.
[00:20:32] Now that we've talked about this great business, we've talked about all these issues that could go bad.
[00:20:37] And then the question is if some of these do actually happen, what can we do to be good when some of these things go bad?
[00:20:46] Actually, I'm glad you mentioned a break because I've got the phone ringing off the hook from the New York store.
[00:20:52] I got a lot of questions to go answer. I guarantee you it's the new Rudolph antlers we just got in. They're big, big hot right now.
[00:21:00] So I gotta go take care and make sure we've got enough of those in.
[00:21:02] So we're going to take a quick break.
[00:21:03] Are they hotter than those Trump commemorative ornaments that you had mentioned?
[00:21:07] Nah, I was just making that up. They're not selling really that well right now. So we're good.
[00:21:13] So let me take a quick break. We come back. We'll pick back up with talking about how to be good when things go bad.
[00:21:20] We'll go through some of these examples of things that could be going wrong in my holiday house of cheer store and talk about what to do in those situations.
[00:21:29] Again, my name is Alan Jackson. I'm with Biveris Incorporated and with me is Ed Gagnon with Customer Service Solutions.
[00:21:35] We will be back with you in just a moment.
[00:21:44] Hello and welcome back to Stepping Up Service here on TheMesh.tv. Before we get back to our topic today, which is being good when things go bad in your organization,
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[00:24:10] So let's get back to today's episode of Stepping Up Service again. I'm Alan Jackson and I'm with Ed Gagnon.
[00:24:16] We were right in the middle of a conversation where Ed had put me in charge of a holiday decoration display and catering service that I'm running extremely well right now.
[00:24:28] It's going gangbusters right now.
[00:24:31] Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh. I apologize.
[00:24:34] But Ed, you know, Ed's being the realist here and he is pointing out where there could be some problems with my company.
[00:24:40] We talked through some examples of things that could potentially go wrong because we're always talking here in this show about what to do when things possibly go bad.
[00:24:49] So Ed, let's pick up where we left off.
[00:24:52] I've given you a list of things that could potentially go wrong with my company. Where do we go from here?
[00:24:57] Well, let's touch on some of these. And as we touch on some of these, we'll talk about from the customer's perspective, this is what they want you to do or not do.
[00:25:07] And the examples I'll give, I'll give about nine different examples of what customers want in situations when things go bad.
[00:25:14] These are not just ideas or concepts we've come up with. These actually are verbatim out of surveys we've done with different clients.
[00:25:23] And we've literally asked customers of our clients on behalf of the clients through surveys, through research, certain questions that relate to issue resolution.
[00:25:34] And these are some of the answers. So I'll weave in the customer answers, what they want based on the situations that Alan's House of Holiday Delights is running into.
[00:25:43] All right, sounds great.
[00:25:45] Give you the first example. Remember you said your products are very disorganized. Somebody's walking out of the store, they can't find what they want.
[00:25:52] And you're looking at that situation, the customer comes to complain to an employee, this is tip number one.
[00:26:00] From the customer's perspective, listen to me, understand my perspective. If I say I can't find something, don't just say, well it's over there.
[00:26:10] Or don't interrupt the person. Don't just go ahead and rush them through it.
[00:26:16] What you want to do is just listen to them, find out what they want, find out what their difficulty is, find out specifically what they're trying to accomplish when they need this particular item before you jump to some kind of a solution.
[00:26:30] So be patient enough to really listen to them, understand their perspective on what's going on, what the real issue is before you jump into it.
[00:26:37] Listen to and understand my perspective.
[00:26:40] I think that's great. I know all these are going to be important, but that one to me, I like hearing first.
[00:26:46] I think we can all attest to the fact of going to a store, a place of business, whatever it may be, and not being able to find something or not getting something that you expect to be in a certain place.
[00:26:58] And you go to Asimite and they just say, well it should be there.
[00:27:01] Go back and look again, it should be there. That's the idea that you're not really listening to me.
[00:27:06] I'm telling you I looked. I'm telling you it's not there.
[00:27:10] So trust me and let's assume that it's not back there and let's figure out a solution.
[00:27:14] Don't just assume I'm wrong and don't assume I don't know what I'm talking about.
[00:27:18] So yeah, I agree.
[00:27:20] Great point.
[00:27:21] And somewhat related to that, let's say that you actually did run out of the item.
[00:27:24] You know, it's that extra large reindeer gizmo that the people and kids put on their heads and they light up and that sort of thing.
[00:27:31] Those are really hot right now.
[00:27:33] Yeah.
[00:27:34] Is it just in the northeast?
[00:27:36] Oh no, no, no, they're all over the place.
[00:27:38] All over.
[00:27:39] I had big orders from California just the other day.
[00:27:42] Really?
[00:27:43] Oh yeah. They were really big all over.
[00:27:45] I didn't know reindeers were big in California.
[00:27:47] I didn't either.
[00:27:48] I didn't either, but somebody out there is buying a whole bunch of them.
[00:27:50] So I don't know what's going on.
[00:27:52] They're probably reselling them on eBay.
[00:27:54] Yeah, they could be.
[00:27:55] They're undercutting me.
[00:27:56] Oh, I gotta stop them from doing that.
[00:27:58] Well, let's say that a customer does run out of the reindeer antlers or they notice that you've run out of that particular item.
[00:28:07] They come to you and they're complaining.
[00:28:09] What we don't want to do at this point is assume what an alternative might be for that customer and just rush into this alternative.
[00:28:17] Oh, you don't want those antlers. We have some just as good over here.
[00:28:20] These are the antlers or oh, you didn't you wanted those antlers?
[00:28:24] We don't have them.
[00:28:25] That's all right.
[00:28:26] We have these toboggan over here with reindeers on the toboggan.
[00:28:30] So just go over there.
[00:28:32] They're there.
[00:28:33] So similar to the first one customers say when things go bad, don't rush me.
[00:28:37] You know, don't assume you know what I want next again.
[00:28:40] Be a little bit patient on me.
[00:28:42] Don't rush me because if you interrupt that customer again or you try to rush them to an alternative.
[00:28:47] Then they might think you don't care.
[00:28:49] They might think you're being rude.
[00:28:51] So again, be a little bit patient.
[00:28:53] Not only listen to and understand their perspective on the situation, but don't rush them through it.
[00:28:58] Give the customers when things go bad a little bit more time to share and to receive the information you're trying to convey as well.
[00:29:05] I mean, I think that's obviously applicable for any type of business.
[00:29:08] And we're using kind of a retail example as our story example.
[00:29:12] But I also see that I think that it's really important on a service based organization as well.
[00:29:17] If a one particular service that somebody is expecting or a type of relationship they're expecting to get is not working out.
[00:29:24] It's still that same idea of don't rush me into some other avenue.
[00:29:29] You know, let's talk about it.
[00:29:30] Let me kind of give me some information.
[00:29:32] Let's talk through some options.
[00:29:34] Don't just say, okay, well since that's not working, we're going to put you over here or we're going to route you this way and make it very much.
[00:29:40] It becomes almost more an automated process, which I don't think in most situations people want to be dealing with.
[00:29:46] If they're approaching a human being, they want to talk with a human being about some options and ideas and what they do next when something's not going right.
[00:29:54] Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:29:55] I mean, there's been so many mystery shops or companies done where we'll have a mystery shopper go down town to some facility and they'll be asking a question.
[00:30:04] And then the employee says, oh, just go to the website.
[00:30:08] So the customer left their home.
[00:30:10] They drove 20 minutes.
[00:30:12] They parked, you know, they walked into the building in the rain.
[00:30:15] They go up to the third floor.
[00:30:17] They wait in line for five minutes and then you tell them go to the website.
[00:30:20] I mean, it's just crazy.
[00:30:22] You know, don't rush me.
[00:30:23] View my think of what I've gotten through or gone through to get to this point and be patient enough with me to really help me and address my unique needs.
[00:30:33] And just to stem off of that, anybody who out there who's ever heard one of their employees say that exact phrase of go to the website.
[00:30:40] Please keep in mind, there is a still a very large number of the population of the America that does not have internet access or if they do, they do not use it for any kind of web browsing.
[00:30:50] So again, that's another thing.
[00:30:52] Not only are you rushing me or pointing me in a direction that's counterproductive to where I am now, but it may not even be something I can even do.
[00:31:00] But you're still telling me that's where I have to go now.
[00:31:02] So yeah, exactly.
[00:31:04] The third example gets back to the fact that unfortunately, Alan, sometimes Alan's house of holiday delights is short staffed at checkout.
[00:31:12] So the customer and I'm sorry to say that out.
[00:31:15] The customer is waiting literally 15 minutes after they got all excited, found their item 15 minutes just to go through checkout.
[00:31:23] I think you're referring to Adam's holiday house.
[00:31:27] That's a competitor of ours that started up not too long ago.
[00:31:31] So a lot of these bad stories you're hearing, I really think it's about Adam's house and not Alan's house of holiday cheer.
[00:31:37] So I will still play out the examples.
[00:31:39] I'm just kind of clarifying that for the listeners out there.
[00:31:41] I really don't think we're talking about my store.
[00:31:43] But anyway, go ahead, you're saying being short staffed or not having enough people to handle the massive amount of people that come into my store.
[00:31:51] Is that what you're saying?
[00:31:52] So it is your store.
[00:31:53] I mean, hypothetically speaking, sure.
[00:31:56] Well, in this particular case, this happens so often in service recovery situations where the customer will have a bad experience and the employee will at the cash register in this case say,
[00:32:10] Oh, I'll take care of those items for you.
[00:32:12] Well, that's nice.
[00:32:14] That's their job.
[00:32:15] That's the function.
[00:32:16] But there needs to be a realization.
[00:32:17] That person just waited 15 minutes to get to you.
[00:32:20] You know, I apologize for the wait.
[00:32:22] I'm sorry about this.
[00:32:23] This is not how we typically do business.
[00:32:25] Many customers don't want you to just fix their problem.
[00:32:28] They want you to acknowledge the problem, you know, take a little bit of responsibility.
[00:32:33] You know, don't be afraid to say, I'm sorry, some customers will not settle down until they hear those magic words.
[00:32:40] And some of them, that's all they want to hear once they hear it.
[00:32:42] They're fine.
[00:32:43] But if you don't say it, then that back's going to get up that negative word of methods is going to come out there.
[00:32:48] And some of the customers just want you to apologize.
[00:32:51] It's almost seen as a sign of disrespect.
[00:32:53] Don't apologize.
[00:32:54] What I've seen whenever I've had a long wait longer than what a organization wants to have happen and they acknowledge it, they see it.
[00:33:03] They're like, wow, our customers are waiting longer in line than we'd ever like for them to.
[00:33:08] They is some of the best organizations will even have like a little emergency stack of coupons or little gifts or something like that to say,
[00:33:16] we're breaking into our little, we're sorry packet.
[00:33:20] And here's a discount for your next purchase or we're going to apply a 10% discount on your purchases right now that you're buying.
[00:33:27] You have something that I mean the I'm sorry is like you got to do that.
[00:33:31] But there are ways to go even beyond that when you've got wait times that are longer than expected and you take the first initiative to actually acknowledge it before the customer gets upset about it.
[00:33:42] Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:33:43] And it reminds me of one of my clients as a school system and at their international center people registering outside.
[00:33:49] It was a very hot day and employees who weren't even working that outside registration area at the time noticed this long line for me so they got a bunch of bottled waters and just went to the line sort of giving people bottled water.
[00:34:02] Something as simple as that was greatly appreciated.
[00:34:04] That's right.
[00:34:05] That's basically you saying to that person out there, I see what's going on.
[00:34:09] I acknowledge it.
[00:34:10] I sympathize.
[00:34:11] I empathize and I want to try to help make it better.
[00:34:15] And that's no matter what those efforts are those little symbols, that's what people want to see.
[00:34:19] You're right.
[00:34:20] It's expected, you know, so yes.
[00:34:22] Well, you had mentioned sometimes the website can get slow.
[00:34:25] It's not because of you Alan.
[00:34:27] Wherever it's hosted.
[00:34:29] Yeah.
[00:34:30] Sometimes it can be a little bit slower.
[00:34:32] Gotta blame the gotta blame the website host.
[00:34:35] Yes, yes, yes.
[00:34:36] You have to blame the website host.
[00:34:38] Yes.
[00:34:39] So the fourth item what customers want you to do is to own the resolution even if you didn't cause a problem.
[00:34:45] So you didn't cause that website to be down, but obviously it is your website.
[00:34:50] Yours is down.
[00:34:51] Yours is slow.
[00:34:52] So you could just say, oh, you know, it's another company or you could say, you know, I'm very sorry about this.
[00:35:00] This is not typical for our business.
[00:35:04] But I want to make sure you can make that purchase.
[00:35:06] I want to make sure you can gather that type of information.
[00:35:10] So until the website comes back up quickly, let me see if I can help you by doing a B or C as an alternative.
[00:35:17] So you're not just saying, hey, it's not my fault.
[00:35:19] It's not my problem.
[00:35:20] You're at least owning it to the point that they can come up with some kind of an alternative, some kind of resolution instead of just forcing the customer to have to wait on that website to get their purchase made or their question answered.
[00:35:32] Yeah.
[00:35:33] I mean, you could you could put up a there could be a little splash page whenever the website's not working.
[00:35:38] That just says here's our toll free number to call.
[00:35:41] Yes, we'll have people to answer your call right away.
[00:35:43] We know it's not as convenient, but we still want to help get your order taken care of.
[00:35:48] Apologize apologize apologize.
[00:35:50] Don't throw the website host under the bus on the down that page and don't have your staff went to my calls in and says the website wasn't working.
[00:35:58] I'll say, yeah, this company we use.
[00:36:00] I don't know what's going on and we're upset to you know, you just like you said, you own it.
[00:36:06] Yep.
[00:36:07] It's our responsibility and we're sorry and let's let's see if we can get you taken care of.
[00:36:11] So we're going to stick on the website here and you get many purchases from India.
[00:36:17] So yeah, love your stuff in India.
[00:36:19] I do.
[00:36:20] I've got a lot of fans in India.
[00:36:22] Is that the reindeer antlers again or is it something different that's really resonates with the Indian holiday?
[00:36:27] Reeds.
[00:36:28] I don't know why a lot of wreaths are being sold out in India.
[00:36:31] I don't understand it.
[00:36:32] We got a big, big marketplace for that there.
[00:36:36] We get a lot of glitter that gets sold in other countries out in kind of a Middle Eastern area.
[00:36:42] So I don't know.
[00:36:43] I can't figure out any of these trends myself.
[00:36:45] Well, you have several different countries that utilize the translated version of your website and sometimes there are complaints about the
[00:36:55] relations not being clear or whatever the case might be.
[00:36:58] What customers want to hear in this case is some direction.
[00:37:03] Tell me specifically what I need to do to make this purchase.
[00:37:06] Tell me specifically what I need to select to make sure I get the shipment by three or four days before the holidays and respond quickly.
[00:37:14] Don't keep me on hold.
[00:37:16] So these are the next two points when something goes bad, two things that the customer really wants are direction.
[00:37:22] If I as a customer have to do something, tell me specifically what I need to do, where I need to do it, by when I need to do it.
[00:37:29] They want to know what those next steps are that reduces anxiety and gives them kind of a clear path, but they also want you to respond quickly.
[00:37:36] So many studies have said that customers are more likely to repurchase from a business not only based on whether you resolved the issue, but how quickly you did.
[00:37:44] So the next two points when something goes bad, provide direction to the customer, what they need to be doing, what's their role in the solution, but also make sure you're responding quickly to the service recovery issues to those complaints.
[00:37:56] It's a great that first point is really interesting because I have heard some people say, well, we shouldn't make the customer do anything if something goes wrong.
[00:38:04] It should all be on us and it's a nice idea.
[00:38:07] But I think realistically speaking, there are going to be some things the customer has to do, especially when we're talking about online or any kind of road.
[00:38:13] I mean, or any kind of remote distance transactions.
[00:38:16] They're going to have to call a phone number or they're going to have to send an email or they're going to have to do something.
[00:38:21] It's okay to ask them to do it, but you're right.
[00:38:23] Those instructions have got to be crystal clear.
[00:38:25] Don't say don't say send us an email and we'll take care of it.
[00:38:29] I mean, what email address do I use?
[00:38:32] Do I need to reference anything in the email?
[00:38:34] You know, tell me what to put in there.
[00:38:37] They want to know those details where else they feel like they're just kind of floating out in the dark.
[00:38:41] Yes.
[00:38:42] Yeah.
[00:38:43] And relating to that, we're talking about these online orders, for example.
[00:38:46] Let's go to the example you gave about the shipping lanes getting clogged.
[00:38:50] There's late packages.
[00:38:51] You know, the things are not arriving on time.
[00:38:54] These are the next two things a customer wants when things go bad.
[00:38:57] First, keep them up to date.
[00:38:59] So if the issue resolution is not immediate, then don't just go dark with your communications until it's resolved.
[00:39:07] Let them know what's going to happen next.
[00:39:09] Let them know when it happens.
[00:39:11] Let them know what those updates are as you go along.
[00:39:14] And relating to that, if there are multiple options, include the customer and the decision making.
[00:39:20] Don't say, well, you know, the shipping's been a little bit slower lately.
[00:39:26] So we're going to just go ahead and FedEx it to you.
[00:39:29] It's going to cost you an extra $15 or the shipping is a little bit clogged.
[00:39:35] So you won't have to pay any more.
[00:39:38] We're going to ship it and you'll get it two weeks after the holidays.
[00:39:42] Or we're just going to leave it at one of the local stores and you just go and pick it up.
[00:39:46] Exactly.
[00:39:47] Right, yeah.
[00:39:48] Kind of making that option for them.
[00:39:49] When you did have multiple options you could have chosen, let them be a part of that.
[00:39:53] You're saying let them be a part of that choice because there may be one option that's a better fit for them than we would imagine.
[00:39:59] Exactly.
[00:40:00] And that goes back to the last point you made.
[00:40:02] Sometimes people want to have a part in the solution.
[00:40:05] They want to have control over it.
[00:40:07] And so you might want to do it for them, but that might not be the preference of the customers.
[00:40:11] They trust themselves more than some person they don't know hundreds of miles away in a different business.
[00:40:16] So keep them up to date if there are steps to be made and there is a time frame over which the issue's going to be resolved.
[00:40:25] But if there are multiple options, don't again assume.
[00:40:28] Give them the options.
[00:40:29] Include them in the decision making so that they get the resolution that they most prefer.
[00:40:33] That's nice.
[00:40:34] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:35] That makes perfect sense.
[00:40:36] I can even, each of these examples you're giving, I can rattle off situations I've been in where I could see how that would have made that process so much better if these little steps have been followed.
[00:40:46] Absolutely.
[00:40:47] Yes.
[00:40:48] And then they all tie into the very last and ninth example of what customers say when things go bad, how they want you to be good.
[00:40:56] And that is to resolve issues fairly.
[00:40:59] Now that kind of begs the question, Alan.
[00:41:02] What exactly is fair?
[00:41:04] Sure.
[00:41:05] It's a subjective term.
[00:41:06] Yeah, it's a very subjective term.
[00:41:08] So Alan, when you think about the fact that something is being shipped late or if you think about the fact that somebody was delivered,
[00:41:18] an item that was poor quality, maybe it was your vendor's issue and it was poor quality or maybe there's a situation where the customer wants a return but they already used part of the product.
[00:41:30] What does fair mean to you in those situations as a customer of Alan's House of Holiday Delights?
[00:41:38] I mean, I would think from a fairness standpoint, it's, am I still getting ultimately what it is I'm looking to get,
[00:41:46] even if it's not in the same time or maybe it was at a different price,
[00:41:50] but ultimately I'm still getting it and I'm getting it resolved in a way that is very compatible to me in my preferences, my lifestyle, whatever it may be.
[00:42:00] I mean, that to me is what I could see as how people deem something as fair, a fair resolution.
[00:42:05] Yeah, and that was excellent.
[00:42:07] And the two core points, if I want to make them a little bit more general that you just made are one,
[00:42:12] make sure I got my need met or my goal met in some form.
[00:42:17] And then the second piece talks about let's do this in a way that I'm comfortable with, you know, in a process that I can be accepting of.
[00:42:26] And both of those things require you to have dialogue with the customer.
[00:42:30] What is your ultimate goal?
[00:42:31] What are you trying to achieve?
[00:42:32] What is the process that's most comfortable for you?
[00:42:35] So that gets back to number eight.
[00:42:37] You have to involve the customer in the decision making process.
[00:42:41] You have to allow them to weigh into the process for issue resolution for them to buy in to whatever that process is going to be or that ultimate outcome is going to be.
[00:42:50] So think about that phrase we've used once or twice before, weigh in to buy in.
[00:42:55] If you want them to feel like and buy into the fact that this was a fairer issue resolution process, make sure you have that dialogue about how can we meet your ultimate need and what is that process we're going to use to get there.
[00:43:06] Perfect.
[00:43:07] Now that makes absolutely great sense.
[00:43:09] This whole idea of involving the customer in that service recovery, that problem resolution process is probably a little far into a lot of people out there.
[00:43:18] They kind of think, well, I've got a certain script I follow and if this goes wrong, then I follow this branch over to option B and this is what I do immediately and take care of it.
[00:43:29] And it's true that I can imagine in a lot of cases that option B, the automatic option B is probably going to work out okay.
[00:43:36] Yes.
[00:43:37] But it's not always going to work out okay.
[00:43:39] And I still think even if you have that option B, talking to the client and really walking them through their options and helping fit one to their needs is still the always the preferred solution and it's always going to give you that better recommendation factor from that customer in the future, I would think.
[00:43:56] So yeah.
[00:43:57] So I'm going to run through these nine one more time just real quick as a summary before we wrap up and go to our stories.
[00:44:03] And when I do this, I'm going to talk as if I'm the customer who's engaged with Alan's house of holiday delights or Adams depending when things go bad.
[00:44:13] So number one, listen to me understand my perspective.
[00:44:17] Number two, don't rush me.
[00:44:19] Number three, just apologize.
[00:44:22] Number four, own the resolution.
[00:44:24] Even if you didn't cause the problem.
[00:44:27] Number five, provide me some direction.
[00:44:29] Where do I need to go when what do I need to do that sort of thing?
[00:44:32] Number six, respond quickly to my inquiries.
[00:44:35] Number seven, keep me up to date on what's going on, what progress is being made.
[00:44:39] Number eight, include me in the decision making preferably with different options to choose from.
[00:44:44] And number nine, resolve issues fairly.
[00:44:48] Yeah.
[00:44:49] That's great.
[00:44:51] And that's the thing to remember with these these customer service encounters.
[00:44:55] You may be working at a fast food restaurant where your transaction time is really quick with somebody you're only involved with them for maybe 30 seconds of time.
[00:45:05] Yes, but all of those things you just said still fit if something if something wrong.
[00:45:10] I mean, if something went wrong, it's like, okay, they got they got their burger and they went to their table.
[00:45:15] They came back in the burger order was completely wrong.
[00:45:18] Every single thing you just said all nine still absolutely apply that situation.
[00:45:22] Just because it's in a much shorter compressed time, you still need to listen to them.
[00:45:27] You still need to like to work with them involvement actions.
[00:45:30] Okay, well, would you like a replacement of that burger or is it a different burger you'd like we can do either way?
[00:45:35] You know, it's all that is still it just doesn't it doesn't matter if you're dealing with a multimillion dollar project or you're dealing with a $2 hamburger.
[00:45:42] So the same the same steps all apply.
[00:45:45] That's an outstanding point and a great example to I mean, you can use so many of these tips and literally a 30 second conversation.
[00:45:53] And the customer walks away feeling better about your company, even though you didn't do it right the first time, which is the whole idea here.
[00:46:01] No company is about perfection.
[00:46:03] So the question is how do we make the customers really feel great about our business?
[00:46:08] Even when things go bad.
[00:46:09] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:46:10] That is great.
[00:46:11] And perfect topic.
[00:46:12] Great topic.
[00:46:13] Love talking about it.
[00:46:14] Being good when things go bad, how to not only understanding the kind of organizations that unfortunately don't always have the chance to deliver that wow experience.
[00:46:24] But whether you do or don't, there's always that chance something's going to go wrong or what are those steps you can take to ensure that the problem is resolved to the customer satisfaction.
[00:46:33] Nine great great feedback tips from actual client content comments which I thought was really nice as well.
[00:46:40] So that's our topic for today.
[00:46:41] Now what we do here at the last little part of the show is we do share our story of the month.
[00:46:46] This is again a customer service encounter that Ed's had and I've had so we both share one.
[00:46:52] It could be a positive experience we've had it could be a negative experience either way is something with that kind of affected us enough that we want to share it with you the audience and also draw some good lessons from them because,
[00:47:05] you know, these are real world examples and granted Ed and I we may be a little bit more acute to these things out in the community and in our consumerism than others.
[00:47:15] But I guarantee you all of you listening have had similar experiences encounters and these are all things we can learn from and apply back to our own organization.
[00:47:23] So, yes, Ed, you were talking a good bit the last little bit there so is it okay if I go first?
[00:47:28] Sure, that's great.
[00:47:29] Is yours a negative or positive one?
[00:47:31] Mine's positive.
[00:47:32] Mine's positive too.
[00:47:33] So let's end on two good positive ones.
[00:47:35] It's that Alan's House of Holiday Delight feeling that we had right now.
[00:47:38] Let's just have a wow experience here at the end of the episode, okay?
[00:47:42] So mine's kind of an interesting one and it's a very niche, very, very unique type of service opportunity but I still think it was just really great the way it was handled.
[00:47:54] So my sister, my sister, my wife's sister had a birthday recently and for the birthday her daughters, my nieces, decided that they wanted to surprise her.
[00:48:07] And so we actually joined up with them on my sister-in-law's birthday unbeknownst to my sister-in-law.
[00:48:15] So it was a nice surprise that we showed up as a family to spend the day with her.
[00:48:19] But one of the things that she really wanted to do is have you heard of these escape rooms?
[00:48:24] Oh, yes.
[00:48:25] Okay.
[00:48:26] So we went to Asheville City about an hour and a half away from us and we did an escape room.
[00:48:31] I had never been to one before and was really excited to go.
[00:48:35] But I also going there had a little bit of a sinking feeling because I had, I could almost anticipate how these things may work out.
[00:48:45] The concept's really, really cool.
[00:48:47] This idea that you get put into a room with a group of people and there's clues all around the room and you have to try to figure out how to get out of that room in a certain amount of time.
[00:48:57] Now anytime you have an experience like this, I can even relate this to things I do with my kids.
[00:49:01] You know, when we've gone to play laser tag or we've gone to other places where you have kind of a experience and you're counting on the people that are there working there to kind of walk you through that experience
[00:49:11] and kind of really make it a big experience for you.
[00:49:15] I've been to plenty of these things where the employees absolutely did not make it a good experience and it was almost like a, well, okay, yeah, they're here to do this, push them in the room, turn off the lights and they just have to go about and do their thing.
[00:49:27] So I want to give this one place props.
[00:49:29] I mean, great, it was my first time going to one of these but I was really impressed.
[00:49:32] I think they did it just right.
[00:49:34] And it's all about that experience where you walk away feeling really good about it.
[00:49:37] The place is called the Conundrum in Asheville.
[00:49:40] It's a small little place fairly new.
[00:49:42] I think they have three or four of these escape rooms in their facility, but they also have a nice lounge area you go to afterwards and kind of hang out.
[00:49:50] And I think enter the conundrum is the website so ENTER THE CONUNDRUM.COM.
[00:49:57] And you know, you go into this place and immediately we're greeted by somebody working there.
[00:50:02] A couple of people that are greeting us and they're going to walk us into our room are dressed in a certain attire because they're matching the story that we're getting ready to go into.
[00:50:11] They take us into one prep room and the young woman there dressed as a very authentic older type maid and she's there telling us a story.
[00:50:20] She's even got an accent.
[00:50:22] She's really doing it upright.
[00:50:23] Everything is just real like done up to make you feel like it's a great experience.
[00:50:28] We get into this room and of course it's a lot of fun.
[00:50:31] I mean, it's a little scary the one that we got put into where there's lights going out and there's supposedly a ghost talking to us at times.
[00:50:39] It was fun.
[00:50:40] But occasionally we got a little flustered or stomped throughout the hour.
[00:50:44] Sure.
[00:50:45] What was really nice is occasionally this actress that came in as our guide would come in occasionally and just check to see how we're doing and see if there was any little hint she could nudge us towards.
[00:50:56] Very friendly.
[00:50:57] Very hey, well just you know have you thought about looking under the candlestick?
[00:51:02] Maybe there's something there and just kind of nudging us just a little bit so we don't get completely frustrated.
[00:51:07] And we also have a chance of actually winning this thing.
[00:51:10] Little things that I'm sure they didn't have to do.
[00:51:12] Little things I'm sure the guys could have just been sitting behind the room and just watching the clock and saying, well it's an hour they didn't get out.
[00:51:18] So they're done.
[00:51:19] But it's just making that experience and then we did get out.
[00:51:23] We got out with a one minute to spare.
[00:51:25] Yeah, that last five or six minutes was pretty hairy.
[00:51:29] But when we got out of the room, you know they were all clapping and excited.
[00:51:32] They will took us in a room and took a photograph for us in front of a big sign saying that we completed it just it was just a nice experience.
[00:51:40] And I mean, it didn't take much.
[00:51:42] It just took them, you know, just wanting they were seem very committed to wanting to make sure their customers had a good experience.
[00:51:48] So I think we could talk about delivering that wow experience that did push more into that direction.
[00:51:54] And for me, somebody who had never encountered one before not knowing anything what to expect.
[00:51:59] It was a very pleasant pleasant surprise of how well they organized it.
[00:52:03] It could have been just the people that were there that time of day.
[00:52:06] It could have been just a certain day of the week.
[00:52:08] I don't know.
[00:52:09] But right away my first experience extremely positive and I'm desperately wanting to go back at some point now.
[00:52:14] So well, that's great.
[00:52:16] That's a great story.
[00:52:17] It's interesting because my I was a chaperone for a youth group that went to one of those.
[00:52:22] But I didn't actually go in.
[00:52:24] Right.
[00:52:25] But at this particular place, they definitely didn't dress up.
[00:52:28] Occasionally they would get on the speaker and say some things into the room.
[00:52:33] I guess they had cameras so that they could watch things.
[00:52:36] They had a gathering room, but it was more like a very small office.
[00:52:41] So it's interesting because that the kids had a good experience.
[00:52:45] They only got about 80% of the way through.
[00:52:48] But you can just look at some of the very specific examples that you gave, which fighting cost a ton of money just cost thought.
[00:52:56] Right.
[00:52:57] And those additional things that happened in Asheville turned it from a good experience into a wow.
[00:53:01] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:53:02] Now it's great and you're right.
[00:53:04] It's all very, very simple.
[00:53:05] It's just hey, you know what?
[00:53:07] I'm going to put on a costume and kind of make myself be a part of this environment.
[00:53:11] And I'm going to check in on the people in a very friendly way from time to time.
[00:53:16] Hey, let's take their photograph because everybody wants to kind of get a selfie group photo afterwards.
[00:53:21] Why don't we just offer to do that and have a nice little spot to do that right afterwards?
[00:53:24] I mean it's just little touches that just made that whole experience really good.
[00:53:28] The escape room could have been really good or bad on its own, but it's the things that they did around it.
[00:53:33] I think made it just a really great experience.
[00:53:35] So yeah, that's my story anyway.
[00:53:37] So what about yours?
[00:53:38] What have you got to share?
[00:53:39] Well, use the word simple.
[00:53:41] Mine's very simple.
[00:53:42] I know that you were talking earlier about fast food and in 30 seconds you can use a lot of those tools.
[00:53:47] And I had a very quick experience where a lot of good things happened.
[00:53:50] So very simple example, had a physical manual physical recently.
[00:53:55] They always end that with some lab work.
[00:53:57] So the nurse walked me into the waiting room.
[00:54:00] The tech came out to get a chart of the actual lab room and she saw me.
[00:54:06] She acknowledged me, smiled said I'll be with you in a minute.
[00:54:09] She greeted me when it was my time to come in and noted that I had a computer and a coat with me.
[00:54:16] And yes, I brought my computer with me to the doctor's office.
[00:54:20] You are a dedicated man, Mr. Gagner.
[00:54:23] Yes, yes.
[00:54:24] But she said you can put your computer and your coat here on the chair.
[00:54:27] She confirmed my name.
[00:54:29] She had noticed that I was on the computer so she asked if I was working and I said that I had.
[00:54:33] So she asked what I do.
[00:54:35] And obviously I mentioned I'm in customer service and this sort of thing.
[00:54:39] And she was talking about customer service is so important to me.
[00:54:42] It's very important when I go into a business sometimes, I won't go back if they don't have good customer service.
[00:54:48] And then she started to give me personal examples and she started talking about companies that she had patronized that were especially good.
[00:54:56] And she was doing all this while she was drawing my blood.
[00:54:59] And then she asked questions.
[00:55:01] I answered questions.
[00:55:02] She shared ideas and then all of a sudden she said, OK, we're done.
[00:55:06] And I said what?
[00:55:07] And she said, yeah, we're all done.
[00:55:08] I said that is the fastest anyone has ever drawn my blood.
[00:55:12] Now I'm going to tell that story but here are the conclusions.
[00:55:15] First of all, she observed me when I was in the waiting room.
[00:55:18] She was looking at me.
[00:55:20] She obviously noticed I was on the computer so she was engaged even before we had met.
[00:55:26] She anticipated my needs by suggesting where I could put the coat and computer so she didn't wait for me to start looking around the room.
[00:55:33] She anticipated that was proactive.
[00:55:36] She asked me lots of questions, which is always a great sign of customer service or being inquisitive about your customer.
[00:55:42] She empathized with me talking about customer service.
[00:55:45] She engaged me on my topic.
[00:55:47] You know, she wasn't talking about herself.
[00:55:48] She engaged me on my topic and she conveyed that my topic was important.
[00:55:54] And by association that I was important because she was really reiterating supporting the importance of the kind of work that I do.
[00:56:02] She ended quickly.
[00:56:03] Now, now I ended the conversation by saying that was the fastest anyone has ever drawn my blood.
[00:56:08] That's what I said, but I don't know if that's true.
[00:56:10] Yeah, right.
[00:56:11] But that's not really important whether or not it's true.
[00:56:14] What's important from a time perspective is that it felt like it.
[00:56:17] I was going to say I was going to add one more thing.
[00:56:19] I thought we're really positive on that.
[00:56:21] And it may have been something she was doing intentionally.
[00:56:23] I've been to enough places where the person working with me does just as many questions and asking about me and all that, but they're doing it before they start their work like drawing blood.
[00:56:33] So in other words, they are now drawing out the time.
[00:56:36] So it's like, I want to have a conversation with you.
[00:56:38] I'm going to talk to you for five or 10 minutes and then I'll get around to drawing your blood, which I appreciate them asking me questions.
[00:56:44] That's nice.
[00:56:45] But I'm also it's eight o'clock in the morning.
[00:56:47] I kind of need to get to work.
[00:56:49] So the fact that she was doing it simultaneously, there may have been a little psychology where she knew maybe that customers handled the drawing of blood much easier when she's kind of got their mind off of it a little bit by talking about other things.
[00:57:01] That's great.
[00:57:02] You know, so that's even another higher level of service she may have been displaying there.
[00:57:05] Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:57:06] And she had that turn to get on the arm in 25, 30 seconds.
[00:57:10] So you're right.
[00:57:11] She was at the work, but she was also at the conversation at the exact same time.
[00:57:15] That's really good.
[00:57:16] That's really good.
[00:57:17] And your arm, it wasn't like immensely painful.
[00:57:20] She did a good job with drawing the blood, right?
[00:57:22] So.
[00:57:23] Oh, yeah, it was very quick one stack.
[00:57:25] I mean, it was all good.
[00:57:27] Yeah, I've had those situations with drawing blood where it's the person's super nice, super friendly, a lot of conversation.
[00:57:34] But boy, did they not know how to draw blood very easily.
[00:57:37] Yeah.
[00:57:38] So it was nice that this is kind of a perfect fit on everything.
[00:57:41] So I think she may have had a little psychology going on to think about how she helps people that are maybe more ill at ease with drawing blood than you are and how to handle that by asking them questions and having that kind of dialogue with them too.
[00:57:53] So that's great.
[00:57:54] Yeah, you may be right because she said customer service was important to her and she gave enough examples to show that she understood what good customer service is.
[00:58:02] So you're probably right.
[00:58:03] She was applying that to her job and how she was interacting with me.
[00:58:06] Probably because she's looking for that wow experience where somebody like you says that is either the quickest time that has taken to draw my blood or maybe it was the least painful or you just completely elayed my fears.
[00:58:17] I mean, that's probably what she's looking for.
[00:58:19] That was great.
[00:58:20] That was really interesting.
[00:58:21] That might be a topic for another podcast is how many employees are just motivated by happy customers.
[00:58:27] You know, what jazz is them is if she gets that kind of compliment you were just referring to that's half the reason why she works.
[00:58:35] It helps to hurt if you're good about herself.
[00:58:37] It's totally with me.
[00:58:38] I mean, I'm not just saying that because I'm co-hosting the show with you.
[00:58:41] I mean, it really is.
[00:58:43] And I think even my coworkers know that that's that's what drives me.
[00:58:46] If I got a customer that says that was awesome.
[00:58:48] What you just showed me or what you just gave me or the things you just said about our survey or report.
[00:58:54] That's that's my motivation.
[00:58:56] That's what I'm living for.
[00:58:57] So I think it's good to recognize anybody who's out there trying to do that.
[00:59:01] So that's great.
[00:59:02] I agree.
[00:59:03] Ed, thank you so much.
[00:59:04] Great show.
[00:59:05] So be good when things go bad.
[00:59:07] So you had some great notes and tips to share with people earlier in the episode about what to do even if you're running the best organization in the world.
[00:59:14] Mistakes are going to happen and a lot of customers are going to evaluate you going forward on how you resolve those issues.
[00:59:21] Probably more so than they will whether or not the issue actually happened in the first place.
[00:59:26] And then we had our stories to share both two good positive stories, both simple things.
[00:59:31] You're right.
[00:59:32] Really simple little things that can be done to enhance that service experience that our customers get.
[00:59:37] So this is great.
[00:59:38] As a reminder, the mesh.tv is where you can find these podcasts and his company customer service solutions.
[00:59:45] So I wholeheartedly encourage everybody to go check out his website and contact them if it's something you'd like to talk about or you're looking for ideas within your organization,
[00:59:54] or maybe there's a way they can help in any way.
[00:59:56] The website is cssamerica.com.
[01:00:01] That's the letters CSS for customer service solutions, followed by the full word America.com.
[01:00:09] And then there you go for there's tips of the week, which is actually what kind of drove this topic today.
[01:00:14] There's a great tip of the week on there about how good are you and things go bad that I recommend you search for.
[01:00:20] And we're going to try to put that link for that tip of the week on the description of this episode as well.
[01:00:25] Great.
[01:00:26] And then you've got blog post.
[01:00:27] You've got email newsletters you can sign up for.
[01:00:30] And of course, as always, reach out to them, start a dialogue, ask some questions.
[01:00:34] They're a great resource to have.
[01:00:36] And I am currently serving with Biveris, which is a company that handles patient experience surveys, employee insight surveys and community voice surveys for primarily the healthcare industry.
[01:00:48] But we dabble in a few others from here and there as well.
[01:00:51] You can learn more about us as a company at Biveris.com.
[01:00:55] That's B-I-V-A-R-U-S.com.
[01:00:58] And it can always reach out to me through the website there as well.
[01:01:02] Ed, thanks so much for your time.
[01:01:04] I guess I will not talk to you until after the official rest of the holiday season.
[01:01:08] So happy holidays to you and the rest of your family and friends.
[01:01:12] All right, thanks.
[01:01:13] Same to you, Alan.
[01:01:14] Have a great holiday.
[01:01:15] All right.
[01:01:16] And we'll talk to everybody going into the new year.
[01:01:17] Take care everyone.
[01:01:18] We look forward to talking to you next time we post an episode of Stepping Up Service.
[01:01:22] You've been listening to The Mesh, an online media network of shows and programs ranging from business to arts, sports to entertainment, music to community.
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