Best Practices. Another great business term we all know and love. We love to throw out in meetings because it sounds good and rarely will anyone disagree.

It’s safe. But is it wise.

Who said that adopting best practices is right for your business? Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do in your case.

Sacrilege? Maybe, but here are few thoughts to consider before deciding whether to adopt best practices or develop your own best practices.

Are They Transferable? If the best practices are to work effectively in your business, then the businesses have to have similarities. Do you share similar strategies, customer groups, work forces, business models, margin structures. Before deciding if adopting best practices make sense, make sure you are not trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.

Is there a Downside? What happens if you are wrong? Can you respond quickly and refocus? Make sure that you have an escape plan if you don’t see the results you anticipate. However, don’t bail too early since any new initiative may initially reduce productivity. Ensure that you have a clear set of evaluation criteria, aligned with a time-line when you expect to see some deliverables that will confirm you are moving in the right direction.

Are the Best Practices the Success Factor? Companies may succeed — or not — for many reasons. Don’t be too quickly assume that the success of a company is because of their “best practices”. Some companies succeed in spite of themselves because of a host of other reasons. So before you adopt their best practices, be sure to examine other reasons for their success. If there are not evident in your business environment, dig deeper before making a decision.

My Perspective: Studying best practices is great input to your own thinking. It is always good business to look at other businesses, both inside and outside your industry. But don’t fall in love too quickly with the success of others.

Evaluate and test anything you see as a best practice against your own business model to make sure it makes sense. Selectively choose those that make sense and then adapt versus adopt to your business. That way you create your own best practices based on the best thinking that is applicable to your business model — and they will be uniquely suited to your business.

And then other companies will look at you and want to copy your best practices.

Remember, even best practices were once a new way of thinking that drove success in a business — that’s why other people copy them.

This is our final article in the series of six articles dealing with different aspects of excellent customer service and how it leads to an increase in your overall profitability. It is now available for download as a White Paper at www.BillHogg.ca.

If you have been following along, we have focused on a number of elements of the customer service experience that lead towards building stronger — more profitable — customer relationships.

Every single interaction with a customer affects your business. Whether it is positive, neutral or negative, the goal is to build a loyal relationship so they return again and again to spend their money with your business — and tell their friends. This leads to greater profitability. The loyal customer is the ideal customer and all employees should be focused on building loyalty at every opportunity.

In this article we’re going to cover a few key ways to turn customers who are satisfied into those loyal customers who are responsible for most of your company’s income. Loyal customers mean more profitability for the company and stronger job security for the employees. Customer loyalty literally pays the wages so taking active steps to turn satisfied customers into long-term loyal ones is in everyone’s best interests.

Actively solicit customer input
How many companies demonstrate an interest in what their customers want to see happening in the store? Regular customers may surprise you with ideas that are really good. Of course there are bound to be some that are impractical. But why not ask them what they would like? Tap into them as a vital resource.

There are different ways to get customer input. One method would be to have a suggestion box in a prominent place. Another would be to have a section on your website that enables customers to provide feedback for you to act upon.

Although many businesses can use a similar technique, we’ll use a restaurant as an example. As patrons get up to pay their bill, many restaurants ask “was everything okay…” only to receive a curt “yes” as the patron rushes out the door. A better way to handle this would be to ask them what you could have done to improve their dining experience.
This type of question signals that you are interested in hearing what they have to say and encourages customers to provide feedback on how you can improve — versus just hearing from customers who want to complain.

It’s essential that you take action based on the feedback provided and you could even give that customer a $10 voucher to use on their next visit so they can see for themselves that you have listened and taken action.

Treat every customer like pure gold
Every customer that walks through your door is a chance for you to make a good impression and create a loyal customer. But how do you do this? You have to “read” each customer because they’re all different. Watch their body language. Do they come in and demand immediate attention or do they want to browse first?

We all experience that salesperson that comes up and offers help and if you don’t need it, they stand there like a vulture, watching and waiting. Let them browse if that’s what they want. When they want help, they’ll ask for it. Once you have made yourself available, step back and give them space.

It’s essential that you provide the service they need without being too pushy. You can actually drive them out the door if you push too hard. Once they ask for your assistance, then it’s time to shine. You want to make their customer service experience a positive one so they’ll come back again and again.

Try to personalize each customer interaction to suit the specific customer. If they’re chatty, have a brief chat with them while helping them. If they prefer to simply pay for their goods, handle them courteously and professionally so they can get on with the rest of their day.
Anticipate and meet their needs on every level and they will have no reason to go elsewhere. If you exceed their customer service expectations, they’re well on the way to becoming loyal customers.

Look for Small Ways to Exceed Expectations
In many cases, your products or services may be similar or identical to those of your competitors. If that’s the case, you have to find the small things that will differentiate your experience and add up to an outstanding customer service experiences that not only inspires satisfaction but loyalty too.

Some examples can include: ordering in items that you may not normally stock, carrying heavy items out to the customer’s car, providing a delivery service, offering a free gift wrapping service, ensuring your store registers are always open when the queues build up and being a little flexible in your hours of operation if circumstances dictate.

Customers see these little things as big to them although they may seem insignificant to your overall business. If you’re doing all the extra things that your competitors don’t care enough to do themselves, you’re sure to stand out as a business that really cares for its customers in every possible way.

Build relationships
Everyone likes to hear their name used by other people, whether they realize it or not. Employees should get to know customers and use their name (if appropriate) whenever possible. This creates a relationship that is a little more than just an employee/customer relationship.

If your team greets people by name whenever they enter the store, the customer will feel welcomed and be more inclined to keep coming back. Obviously this isn’t always possible but it’s definitely easier to do than people think, especially if the same customers keep on coming back.

If you keep a database of your customers, you can send them promotional material and discount information on a regular basis. While this may not be a new idea, you can add another function to your database. Utilize it as a reminder service and send out birthday cards to your customers, letting them know that you do care. Make sure the card is handwritten so it’s personal. Perhaps you can include a small gift card or voucher to honour their loyalty and encourage a return visit. This sort of touch lets them know you care.

Conclusion
We have covered a lot of different aspects of customer service in this series. Everything is important when dealing with customers, even if it may not seem that way at the time. Loyalty means everything to the longevity of the company and employees must be trained to have “big picture thinking.”

Without customers, your business would cease to exist and so it’s critical you do everything in your power to ensure that every single customer gets the best treatment, no matter what they need.

It’s not enough to merely satisfy your customers — you can’t differentiate yourself by simply providing that basic level of service. You need to work smarter to build loyalty.

And remember, make them unhappy, even once, and your competition will be glad you did.

How often have you attended a meeting — or worse, a number of meetings — without any concrete decisions being made or action steps agreed?

Too often the team just seems to be going in circles.

This form of indecisiveness — or paralysis by analysis — plagues many organizations. In fact, some people actually use this as a strategy to avoid being held accountable for the success or failure of any initiative.

This lack of decision-making hurts organizations financially because issues and opportunities are not addressed and it creates a sense of powerlessness with the team members who recognize that nothing is happening. It effectively creates an under-performance malaise  that affects the financial goals of the organization and the engagement of the team.

Years ago I worked with a leader who was faced with a team that was unable or unwilling to make a decision. He decided that going forward they would make a decision and then be prepared to adjust that decision if it wasn’t the right one. He felt that they could make a decision; find out it wasn’t the ideal decision and then make a new decision based the new input — faster than they were currently making any decision.

This approach introduced nimbleness to the organization and also sent a signal that people would not be criticized for making a wrong decision. Both excellent messages for any organization.

Here are some tips if you are faced with indecision in your organization

• Ensure people feel safe when making decisions. Of course, decisions need to be made based on good information and thoughtful consideration, but if a decision turns out wrong based on the best use of information at the time, then people should feel safe from criticism.
• Use decisive language in your communication. Confidence and clarity in language sets a tone. Give people honest feedback and discourage indecisiveness. Be clear when providing direction and expect the same from others.
• Ask for opinions and then ensure the opinion is valued — even if everyone doesn’t agree.
• If a decision needs to be delayed, make sure there is a specific reason (i.e. additional information is needed) and establish a time-line to re-group with responsibilities identified to gather the missing information.
• Make sure every meeting ends with a summary of decisions and next steps. Every discussion point should have a concluding next step.
• Ensure each next step has clear accountability on time-lines and responsibilities.
• Follow up to ensure that next steps are being executed; offer support where needed to get the task concluded.
• Solicit feedback to ensure that the decision continues to make sense. This isn’t second-guessing, it’s simply monitoring outcomes. Don’t be afraid to re-visit a decision if the facts change. Sticking with a bad decision is as bad as making no decision at all.

My Perspective: Sometimes I like to say “I never change my mind.” The statement is intended to cause people to pause and think about what I said.

I then add that if presented with additional facts, I haven’t actually changed my mind — but made a new decision.

Good decision-making is evaluating all available facts and then having the courage to make a decision to take action. In some cases, that decision might be to take no action for a specified period, because you need more information — but it needs to be intentional, not by default.

Joseph Michelli, was granted full access to Zappos employees across the organization in preparation for writing his new book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow. I have invited John to share some thoughts from his research with you this week.

For more information about Joseph and his book visit http://www.josephmichelli.com/

The Zappos Experience – Getting Caring Right!

It is a subtle but powerful distinction – do you care for or care about your customers?  I’m not suggesting that you can’t do both but I am asserting that most businesses struggle to do the former let alone the latter.  The “caring for” dimension emphasizes service competence while the “caring about” aspect focuses on the personalized or humanized dimensions of a compassionate experience.  In my recently released book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow, I take a deep dive into how leadership at Zappos (an innovative online – clothing, shoe, and housewares provider) executes both the “caring for” and “caring about” experience dimensions of their business.

Here are just a few Zappos examples from each of these categories:

Caring for (Operational excellence committed to “getting it right” and “making it right.”)

• Obsessive attention to website loading speed
• Consistent qualitative and quantitative analysis of user website behaviour as a guide to improving user experience
• Return policies that maximize customer ease (365 days to return product with free shipping both ways)
• Tenacious focus on the pictorial, video, and content accuracy when presenting products online
• Consistent training for call-centre staff (referred to as Customer Loyalty Team members) to assure product knowledge
• Email follow-ups after customer calls and web chat contacts to evaluate customer satisfaction and engagement

Caring about (Authentic personal connections committed to delivering happiness)

• Encouraging call-centre staff to form PEC’s (personal emotional connections) with customers
• Allowing staff to find products for customers that are not in-stock at Zappos by searching for those products at competitors’ websites
• Supporting staff as they send personalized handwritten thank you notes to customers
• Facilitation of staff development of personal twitter accounts so staff can authentically connect with customers
• Dedication of staff resources to immediately engage in service recovery conversations through social media

While The Zappos Experience offers a detailed exploration of how Zappos creates a service culture that has catapulted the brand from veritable extinction to a game-changing thought leadership, Zappos really offers an opportunity to benchmark our own business practices to see how committed we really are to world class customer-centricity.  In essence, are we doing what the best of the best service companies do to engage their employees and their customers.

Much of Zappos commitment begins with how well Zappos leadership cares for and about their employees (at Zappos this has led to being chosen among Fortunes best places to work) and it travels out to decisions that affect the daily customer experience.  For example, are you willing to spend less on advertising and spend more on expediting service?  Are you allowing staff to take the time needed to address customer needs or are you rewarding rapid movement of customers through lines or phone cues (possibly at the expense of accurate service delivery)?

If you say you care both for and about those you serve, what do you point to to prove your claim?  How do you know how well you are caring?  Would your customers’ assessments align with your responses?  In the end, Zappos get it! “Caring for” builds satisfaction — “caring about” fuels loyalty!

What might you learn from Zappos?

This is the fifth in a series of six articles that looks at different aspects of excellent customer service and how it leads to increased overall profitability. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed.

In the last article, we covered a few of the reasons why customer service should be better than expected — but what happens when we fail to deliver an exceptional experience.

A negative experience often means the customer goes elsewhere with their business — and often they tell their friends. So each lost customer means more than just their lost business, but it results in lost business from their friends as well.

However, research also tells us that if we are able to recover from a poor experience — then customer loyalty actually increases. So if you can turn a negative experience into a positive one — that can lead to loyal customers and increased profits for the company.

In this article, we will cover 5 methods for turning a negative into a positive customer service outcome and helping to keep customers in the process. Customer retention is vital. It’s far easier and cheaper to retain customers than to find new ones.

Remain Calm
If an employee is confronted with an angry or upset customer, they should let the customer vent to express their frustration. No one is rational when they have pent up anger and emotion. Remind employees that the customer is angry at the company and not them as an individual — they’re simply the person in the position of handling the complaint. If an employee took every complaint personally, they wouldn’t survive long in the job.

Once the irate customer has expressed their frustration and calmed down, the employee can ask questions and determine the actual problem. Listen to the real concerns because part of complaint handling is giving the customer the chance to express themselves. Then training can kick in and the problem solving techniques will be put to good use to ensure that whatever the concern, the customer leaves the store satisfied because proper action has been taken to rectify the problem.

Empathize
The employee can diffuse the situation by showing the customer they’re “on their side” and want to help. Sincerity is the key. The customer should feel the employee is there to help instead of arguing or disagreeing with what has been said.

Avoid typical phrases such as “it’s company policy” or “I can’t do that” because they’re negative and will only inflame the situation. Calming phrases such as “Can you tell me exactly what happened?” or “I appreciate your frustration and I am here to help” will go a long way towards winning the customer’s trust.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to say you are sorry for the way they are feeling or their experience. “I’m sorry to hear about your bad experience — what can we do to make it right” is totally different than apologizing because the employee themselves made a mistake.

Evaluate
Review the situation objectively. Ask the customer what would satisfy them and determine the best course of action. Talk through different options if there is more than one to choose from and let the customer provide input on what they want to happen.

In these situations, it’s critical that the employee can think “outside the box” as not all complaints fall within company policy. However, there are often solutions that can be solved by using guidelines that satisfy the customer’s needs and still allow the employee to follow correct procedures to avoid possible future problems.

Take action
Once the optimal solution has been determined, the employee should advise the customer what steps need to be taken to implement that solution. It may be easy to do or it could mean a few different steps need to be taken to ensure the problem is rectified completely.

It’s essential that your team look for every opportunity to exceed a customer’s expectations. It’s one thing to merely satisfy their current problem but if you can take things a step further, the customer will not only be satisfied but may convert to being a loyal customer because their problem was addressed professionally and promptly.

Check back/verify
It’s not enough to just put steps in motion to satisfy a customer. It’s vital that those steps be followed up and your team should ensure that everything has been done the way they promised. Actions may need to happen in other departments or places beyond their control and so follow up may be necessary.

Contact the customer once everything has been taken care of and verify that they’re satisfied with the final outcome. Express appreciation for bringing their complaint back to your company so you had the opportunity to fix the problem.

You should always be looking to go the extra mile for the customer to keep them happy. It may not always work but the effort will often be appreciated. It will help turn the negative experience into a positive one with a hopefully happy ending.

Finally, remember to always thank them for their business and for allowing you to help. After all, they are the customer.

In our final article we’re going to talk about 4 Ways to Turn a Satisfied Customer into a Loyal Customer because that’s where the bulk of the company’s profits are made.