The great online and event-oriented bookseller 800-CEO-READ interviewed customer service keynote speaker and author Micah Solomon (yeah, that’s better-known simply as “me”) just now about my new book, High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service. 800-CEO-READ is one of the most important supporters of business authors, and I really enjoyed this interview. With their permission I am reprinting it below as today’s College of The Customer blog post.
In customer service and hospitality, there’s a lot of power in accepting responsibility. Even when you aren’t conceivably at fault.
Consider this story from late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and the inimitable Four Seasons, as recounted in my new book — out this week – High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service (click here for a free chapter).
. . . . . . . . .
Jimmy Kimmel was vacationing at the Four Seasons resort in Bora Bora (lucky for him) when the tragic Tohoku earthquake sent a tsunami potentially heading his direction (not so lucky). Kimmel sent out terrified tweets the entire time the tsunami was approaching, with his fans shooting back snarky tweets of their own, like ‘‘Hey @jimmykimmel: If you die can I have your pizza oven???’’ In the end, though, Kimmel was extraordinarily delighted–not only by not dying but...
It’s well-known that hospitality is one of my favorite industries. As I’ve frequently written, the hospitality industry holds, over many others, an edge in customer service so strong that nearly any other industry would do well to use it as a benchmark.
Having said that, let me take just one (I could have picked any one of several) of the great hotel companies of North America. A company renowned for its commitment to its guests. And point out that, in at least one sphere, it’s making a tragic mistake common to so many companies, in so many industries: it’s limiting that commitment only to the level required by local statute.
Let me tell you what I mean. The most gorgeous of this chain’s U.S. properties has no lifeguard on duty. Ever. In lieu of a lifeguard, there’s an elegant ceramic-tiled sign by the pool that reads:
No lifeguard on duty.
Call 911 if there is an emergency
or someone stops breathing...
This isn’t a post about The Westin. This isn’t really a post about mattresses. This is a post about a common little trap that a business can set for itself. The Westin hotel and its bedding were just gracious enough to call it to mind. As follows:
I had a superlative stay recently at a Westin, home of the “heavenly bed.” Specifically, in addition to great service, the bed was incredible. The best sleep I’ve gotten in quite some time.
Here’s the funny thing: There was close to no signage at the hotel reminding customers–guests, of course, in hospitality parlance–that Westin is the home of the original Heavenly Bed. (In fact, there was far more messaging about the bottled water in the room.) And Westin used to spend a good deal of marketing collateral being rightfully proud of this feature.
I’m sure they’re still proud. But to some extent, the hoteliers may have forgotten the power of this competitive advantage, due to their daily (nightly)...
The customer experience is the new marketing. Which means that how you design every aspect of your service or product experience is what matters most–not the words you tack on afterwards.
Apple vs. Bose
Let’s look at a tiny part of the customer experience: on/off switches. Like many frequent travelers, I rely on Bose noise-cancelling headphones. But there’s a problem. I go through many, many batteries.
Because I forget to turn off the headphones.
My fault, I know. But so what? I’m the customer, so I blame Bose.
Not really because of any failing of Bose’s, but because of the genius of Apple. Let me explain: Starting with the first iPod, Steve Jobs insisted that portable Apple devices no longer have on-off switches. His engineers thought he was whacked. But they managed to design the iPod so that it timed out after a bit of inactivity, with no input from the user.
Result: no dead...
I spend a fair amount of time, as a customer service speaker and consultant, talking about the traits “(warmth, empathy, teamwork, conscientiousness, and optimism–'WETCO')” needed to ensure great customer experiences. Here’s another one that helps: a sense of humor, coupled with a culture that allows you – when appropriate – make use of it. Not just in informal contexts (Southwest Airlines), but in luxury settings and other traditionally formal customer service formats as well.
To wit:
Patrick O’Connell’s Inn at Little Washington is one of the few double Five Diamond Award–winning institutions (five diamonds for food, five diamonds for lodging—the top designation in both categories from AAA) in the country, and yet, rather than being the stuffy enclave you would expect from that designation, it’s exactly as stuffy as a...
The future of leadership — company leaders who are preparing a bright future for their companies and perhaps for the world — is already here. These leaders focus not just on nuts and bolts, techniques and standards, but on culture.
A strong, consciously developed pro-customer (and pro-employee) company culture is a business advantage that will serve you for years—and inoculate you against competitive inroads.
Think for a minute about Southwest Airlines and the lengthy list of predicted category killers that have tried to imitate it: United Airlines’s United Shuttle, Continental Airlines’s Continental Lite, Delta’s Delta Express, and US Airways’s Metro-Jet. What did these companies lack: Money? Name recognition? Hardly. They lacked Southwest’s relentless focus on culture, which none of its pop-up competitors was willing to slow down to emulate. And all are now bust.
• Without a consciously...
Often, when you set out to improve your own business offering, your instinct is to do so by borrowing (or, as Picasso was said to recommend, stealing) the innovations of your competitors.
And this makes sense, because your customers do judge you in comparison to what they’ve experienced elsewhere. United offers passengers a choice of beverages before takeoff in first class, which means a later flight on USAirways, where they don't, will feel weird. (For a more budget-minded example: McDonald's gives you napkins with your sandwich, so Dunkin Donuts had better follow suit. )
But while benchmarking is important--within your industry and across industry lines--sometimes you can get even further by improving on the competition: specifically, by eliminating the annoyances your competition has overlooked that are driving their customers to distraction. This is an effective and economical...
My daughter came to me not long ago, mystified by a non-self-adhesive postage stamp. You know: the archaic kind of stamp that you have to lick.
She wasn’t joking around: She had no idea how these old-fashioned stamps worked. She had literally never encountered a stamp that you have to lick, and the idea that you would have to apply your tongue to something that in her entire experience had always been self-adhesive was not just — as she was quick to tell me — “gross,” but utterly, entirely perplexing to her.
So, here’s my question for you:
Are you putting your customers through hoops that seem sensible to you, “the way we’ve always done it,” but that no longer make sense to them? Think before you answer, because I’ll bet you are.
As far as customer impressions go, you’re not just competing against other companies in your industry, but against the entire landscape of modern commerce. In other words,...
Bob’s Red Mill, an employee-owned organic-foods mill, store, and café in Milwaukie, OR (yes, that’s the right spelling) is a phenomenally run operation. But don’t take my word for it. Look through its windows.
