SurveyGizmo had a service outage this weekend. It inconvenienced their customers. As a result they built customer loyalty.

On the surface that doesn’t make sense — but the manner in which they dealt with the situation demonstrated the character of their company and their commitment to service. You can see their communication here.

My Perspective: SurveyGizmo did number of things right. Here are a few that jumped out in no particular order. Let me know if you see more.

1. They communicated quickly and honestly. I didn’t even know there was a problem, but yet they communicated the issue to everyone and didn’t try to hide the problem.
2. They were transparent and thorough in their explanation. I have a complete understanding in practical terms what happened and why.
3. They shared a solution to avoid the issue in the future. I have confidence that this issue won’t happen again.
4. They accepted full responsibility for the issue and didn’t try to shift the blame elsewhere.
5. The message was from the CEO and they offered a number where you could call for more answers.
6. They identified any lingering issues and what they were doing to resolve them.
7. They offered workable, alternative solutions to customers to address the problem until everything was resolved.
8. They made me feel like I was an insider.

Overall, they convinced me by their actions that they are committed to supporting my efforts no matter what happens. They will be there for me when I need their service.

So rather than being upset about this issue — I now have a stronger, more trusting relationship with SurveyGizmo than I had before.

Do your service recovery initiatives do as well? If not, have a look at how you handle issues and discover how you can turn adversity into opportunity.

Most of us have regularly scheduled meetings that were created to provide updates on something to someone. Initially they were intended to communicate, inform and move the business forward — but lately you have been wondering whether they are a valuable use of time. Some have degenerated into boring and unproductive time wasters — but they continue because they were once deemed important.

One of the main reasons standing meetings degenerate is that they become common place and people tend not to prepare for a standing meeting as much as for a specific meeting that has been called for a specific purpose.

My Perspective: Here are a few tips to get those standing meetings back on track.

1. Re-evaluate the purpose of the meeting. Is it inertia that has keep them going or is there still a purpose in getting together. If so, get clarity of the expected outcomes that are expected.
2. Make sure people have a specific role in the meeting. If they don’t — maybe they don’t need to be there and could use their time elsewhere to add more value. Too often we invite people  just to keep them “in the loop”. Look around the room and evaluate what value each person is adding and receiving for their attendance — and then pare back the invite list.
3. Insist that every meeting has specific topics for discussion that have been identified in advance — versus the  standard “update agenda”. Put the onus on attendees to commit in advance to the topic they will be sharing. Monotonous “updates” don’t do anyone much good.
4. Make sure action items are identified and summarized at the end of the meeting — then hold each other accountable for delivery. Too many meetings are “updates’ and never seem to generate any action. If no action is required, you have to wonder what the purpose was for the meeting.
5. Be prepared to cancel the meeting if there is no reason to meet. When people leave a meeting feeling they have wasted their time — they feel dis-respected and dis-engaged. However, if they know that real movement takes place — then they will arrive energized and engaged, ready to get something done.

Today, customers are no longer looking for great customer service — they want more. Today customers demand a great customer experience and will not settle for anything less.

It is no longer good enough for companies to provide good customers service — rather, companies need to create memorable interactions with customers that help establish a loyal relationship and promote brand advocacy.

Creating a memorable customer experience is based on the creation of an ideal experience that your customers would want to have throughout their relationship with your company. These interactions take place on a number of channels such as in person, over the phone, through email, and on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Successful customer experiences are scalable and can be managed consistently across multiple channels. Your customers experience must be unique. And, for it to be successful it needs to be clearly defined so that each one of your employees understands how to deliver the experience you want to create for your customers.

10 tips to improve your customer experience

Here are 10 ways that you can improve and refine your customer experience and improve your relationship with customers:

1. Make your customer experience clear: A great customer experience must be scalable across your company, consistent, and be easily understood and implemented by your employees. Have you defined the key elements that must be delivered to every customer? Review your customer experience documents and ask your employees if they understand what is expected of them.
2. Make your customer experience simple: If your customer experience is too complex, your employees will have difficulty delivering a consistent experience. Keep it simple. Do your employees understand what is expected of them? Are there too many rules? Consider relaxing the constraints on your employees so they can focus on creating an experience that creates a positive customer outcome rather than simply following a list of rules.
3. Define customer experience by channel: Customer experiences will vary by the channel that customers use to interact with your company. In person and online experiences are different and this needs to be reflected in how companies approach their customers on each channel.  Does your ideal customer experience vary by channel? If not, clearly outline the experience you want to create for each platform and point of interaction with your customers.
4. Address the emotional need: The focus of customer experience management needs to be on addressing your customer’s emotional need. Do you understand your customer’s emotional needs? What are you doing to ensure their emotional need is addressed?
5. Make sure all levels of your organization are involved: Creating a truly great customer experience is a company wide effort. There needs to be a consistent experience across the board. Does your company have an internal feedback process in place? How do you know your customers experience is consistent? Implement a regular review process and collect feedback about the customer experience.
6. Get your employees to buy in: If your employees do not buy in, your customers experience will suffer. If employees are not buying in, it is often a sign that your customer experience is too complex, or worse, isn’t relevant to the customer. What are you doing to ensure that your employees are buying in and creating the experience your customers want?
7. Talk to your customers: Ask your customers what they want. Be direct — ask them what your company can do to improve their experience. These conversations will help to build relationships. What can you do to better understand your customer’s emotional need? Create feedback channels that will help you capture and respond to your customer’s emotional needs.
8. Test your customer experience: Before launching any new customer experience initiatives, ask some of your customers to test drive your approach and provide feedback. You will be surprised what you will learn and uncover some of the oversights that you have missed. Plus you’ll avoid the expense of a false start that doesn’t really resonate with customers.
9. Narrow your focus: If you do not understand your ideal customer, then the experience you have created for them will be off target. Who are your customers? Do you have an ideal customer profile? What do your customers want to get out of their interaction and relationship with your company? Offer incentives to customers to get their opinion through surveys and focus groups.
10. Measure the experience: Measure, measure, measure. If you do not have the tools in place to measure your customer’s experience, then you will not have the ability to refine the experience and gain new insights. What tools are you using to measure your customers experience? Develop a system to measure your customer’s experience.

Creating a highly engaging customer experience will lead to better relationships with customers that will not only generate consistent income, but also develop brand advocates out of current customers that will help generate a new stream of business.

Recently I was working with a client and was reminded just how destructive email can be when used incorrectly.

Like many companies, their standard form of communication is email. They are spread across Canada and internationally. People work together who never meet, and the default form of communication for all issues is email.

The problem is that people will often say things by email they would never say to your face. People use email to avoid dealing with conflict — it’s easier to fire off an email than deal with the issue head-on. Plus, there is always a record — the ultimate “cover your ass”.

Too often emails don’t get at the substance of the issue — or important elements do not get addressed because they rightly should not be put on paper. Words on paper can often be misunderstood by the recipient, causing escalation when none is needed.

My Perspective: Leaders build rapport based on emotional connections. If you really want to build relationships — you won’t do it unless you create an emotional connection with people — and that requires individualized interactions.

Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind the next time you think about sending an email when a phone call might work better.

1. When you speak to someone personally, you have the opportunity to build rapport with your colleagues. The emotional context of the conversation is much easier to communicate. Too often the tone of an email is misunderstood. On the phone you have the modulation of your voice and it’s easier to communicate the feelings behind the words.
2. The phone allows you to listen and build on their contribution more efficiently.
3. If you misspeak, you have the opportunity to immediately address the situation. It doesn’t create an opportunity for the recipient to fester and contemplate their response. Although email does offer time for reflection, it too often is used to launch a counter-attack.
4. Email prolongs discussion. I am sure we have all experienced entire conversations played out via email, with the entire company copied, looking for input from anyone and listening to no one.
5. It’s not always what you say, but how you say it. Electronic communication removes the emotion and personality and we are left with the stark words. This is especially problematic when people are trying to resolve problems or communicate the subtleties of thought or emotion.

I agree that email has an important role in communicating — as do Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and a host of other electronic channels. They have fundamentally changed how we communicate. They may deepen and broaden and existing relationship — but they cannot, on their own, create a deep relationship with a real emotional connection.

The digital channels cannot replace the live emotional connection we can create face to face or on the phone. That’s hard to replicate electronically.

Often if you ask a colleague who is having some difficulties with another colleague if they have picked up the phone — too often the response is “no”.

So the next time you are preparing to dash off an email — ask yourself, could this situation be better served through a phone call (or even a face to face). Then pick up the phone and build a relationship.

This is the second in our series of articles that looks at leadership capacity and its impact on organizational growth. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed.

In our last article, we discussed how leadership impacts your organizations ability to grow. Now let’s discuss some of the characteristics that leaders need to impact the growth of their organization.

There are certain core characteristics the majority of leaders possess. However, there are also an additional set of characteristics that define transformational leaders — leaders that have the ability to make an impact on organizational growth.

It is an organizations ability to develop this next level of leadership capabilities through training programs, mentoring, and skill development programs that put organizations in the enviable position to grow year over year without experiencing dips in performance.

Core leadership characteristics

There are certain leadership characteristics that, while important, do not inspire organizational change and growth that help companies develop into innovative, consistent industry leaders.

Examples of these core leadership characteristics include:

• Good judgment
• Communication skills
• Competence or knowledge
• Interpersonal skills
• Confidence

We hear about these leadership characteristics all the time and in many different contexts. While they are very important for leaders to have, there is another level of leadership characteristics that are “must haves” for transformational leaders. These are the leadership characteristics that make an impact and spur growth.

Transformational Leadership characteristics that impact organizational growth

In order to put your organization in a position to grow effectively and on a consistent basis, leaders with the following characteristics not only make them an effective leader — but also a transformational leader:

1. Internal motivation and self-management: Transformational leaders find motivation from within and use that as the driving force to effectively manage the direction of the company. The best natural form of motivation is to love what you do and ensure that your values are aligned with the organization you work with.
2. The ability to make difficult decisions: Difficult decisions are a part of being a leader. Transformational leaders do not back away or put off tough decisions. Difficult decisions are made easier when decisions align with clearly defined vision, values, goals, and objectives.
3. Check their ego: When placed in a position of power, it is easy to let your ego get the best of you. However, transformational leaders keep their ego in check and do not let it get in the way of doing what is best for business. The benefit of checking your ego ensures you put the company first over personal gain and encourages the best input from others within the organization — because when the company succeeds, you as a leader also succeed.
4. Willing to take the right risks: Anyone can take a risk. Transformational leaders take calculated risks that more often than not result in positive outcomes. Trusting your instinct, as well as your team to gather the necessary intelligence is important. Trusting your gut is easier when you have taken the time to research, evaluate and inform your decisions with input from those around you. Failure to take the appropriate risks and make these difficult decisions will inhibit change and your ability to grow.
5. Organizational consciousness: Transformational leaders share the collective conscious of their organization. They understand what actions to take to evoke change, spur innovation, and make decisions that will create growth. Since their own values are aligned with the organization they share a joint purpose with the organization and do not just view their position in the company as just a job.
6. Adaptability: Transformational leaders are willing to adapt and are always seeking new ways to respond to a constantly changing business environment. They know that the second they stand still is when they will be passed by their competitors; which means they are open-minded to change and lifelong learners.
7. Willing to listen and entertain new ideas: It is a rare individual who can build an empire. Transformational leaders understand that success is a team effort and growth is derived from the willingness to be open and listen to ideas from all levels of their organization. Transformational leaders create intentional ways to listen to their team and incorporate their insights.
8. Inspirational: People want to be inspired. Transformational leaders have the ability to make those around rise to the occasion. Inspiration comes not just from a formal motivational speech or simple recognition for a job well done, but by treating people as individuals and taking the time to understand what motivates and inspires their team.
9. Proactive: Transformational leaders are proactive decision makers. They do not wait around for others to make decisions and then react. They are willing to take risks, try new things and take an innovative approach to growing the organization. However, they also understand how to manage risk and make decisions that are backed by research, multiple insights and are well thought out.
10. Visionary: Being a visionary is about setting a realistic and concise company mission, vision, and values that fit the culture of your organization. Transformational leaders have the ability not only to effectively communicate the vision, but also get every person to buy in and work toward that vision by communicating with passion and clearly emphasizing the direction they want the company to pursue.

Transformational leaders constantly strive to have these characteristics. Developing these characteristics is what separates companies that are led by managers versus leaders.

The next article will build on these must have characteristics and examine how leaders can assess organizational leadership to improve their companies’ ability to grow.