Recently I had the occasion to visit my local Best Buy. While I was there for one purpose I decided to have a look at some of the new tablets. A very helpful young man came and provided me with excellent information about the various features and benefits to the different offerings. I wasn’t interested in purchasing that day, so I thanked him and went on my way with my other purchases.

When I went to pay, I asked if I could provide a positive comment about one of the staff who had been so helpful.

The answer was that in order to provide feedback — either positive of negative — I needed to visit their website. When I explained that I wasn’t interested in filling out a survey — I simply wanted to pass on a compliment to a manager for a job well done by a staff member — I was told they were not set up to receive comments at the store level. Of course, I could have requested that I speak with a manager or a supervisor, but it wasn’t worth my trouble.

My Perspective: It would appear that Best Buy isn’t really interested in hearing feedback.

Sure, they have a form on a website where they can track comments, but how many people never take the time to go to a website. How many times have you gone to the website on a receipt to provide comments? Too many people see this as a barrier and an inconvenience.

However, you can be sure that many people who won’t make the time to provide feedback through a website are very quick to share their experience with friends — particularly if it is a negative experience. But the organization will never hear their comments — or have the opportunity to benefit from that feedback.

So if you really want feedback, make sure it is easy to provide for the customer — not just set up so it is easy to track by the company.

This system was set up thinking about the organization — not the customer.

Review your process for soliciting feedback and ask whether it is serving the customer — or just more convenient for you.

Last summer my wife, daughter and I went on a cruise. Overall we had a fantastic experience, but one story is still stuck in my mind 6 months later.

Weeks prior to departure, we booked our seating for the main dining room. We chose the late seating and a table just for our family. However, when we arrived at the main dining room the very first night we discovered that our table had been given to another family who had arrived earlier than us. Possibly they were unhappy with their own seating arrangements.

Although the seating plan indicated we should be seated at that table, the maitre d’ now directed us to another table, which was a table for 6 — which already had 2 older couples seated at it. It was obvious these couples didn’t know each other because they were seated at opposite ends of a rectangular table — with the remaining seats between them.

I took one look at the disappointed faces on my wife and daughter and it was clear they were disappointed that rather than having the opportunity to spend this time together each night, we were expected to now become part of a larger table.

When I expressed our disappointment to the maitre d’, their response was that they were sorry — but what were they supposed to do, our table was already seated.

You can probably guess my reaction. Suddenly their problem had become my problem.

There was no doubt that we had booked the smaller table that had been given to another family — but the maitr d’ was hoping we would simply sit at the larger table and they wouldn’t have to deal with the issue.

No deal. I politely insisted that this was their issue and we expected them to resolve it for us — if not tonight, then certainly for the remainder of the cruise.

My Perspective: This is all too typical of many organizations. There is an inherent expectation that poor service is okay and that customers are willing to accept less than they expect. Which is true — customers regularly accept sub-standard service without complaint. Although they tell their friends.

We were required to book our seating and specifically were asked whether we wanted a private table versus a group table. I expect they ask for this information because 1) the cruise lines have learned that it contributes to making the vacation memorable, and 2) by asking in advance they are able to plan the dining room configuration accordingly.

In this case, they expected the customer to bear the result of their error.

How often do we assume the customer will accept less than expected because we are inconvenienced by their request? Do you have the convenience factor unconsciously embedded into your service culture — or do you communicate to all employees that your first goal is to ensure the customer expectation is met or exceeded, regardless of the inconvenience to the organization.

In the end, when pressured by an insistent customer — the maitre d’ was able to find us a lovely table that evening — and we were seated at another table for the balance of our vacation. Everything worked out great.

Except for the fact that 6 months later I still remember that they tried to make their problem mine.

BY BILL HOGG & SARAH KEOGH

If I was to ask you who you‟re working for, what would you say?

1. Your company?
2. Your boss?
3. Yourself?
4. Your customers?

Most people, when they are honest, answer 1, 2 or even 3. But if you answered 4, are you really working for your customers, or just paying lip service to it?

It seems everyone is talking about “customer-focus”. I love the phrase “customer-focus” because it recognizes a fundamental truth that too many people seem to forget – that customers are your raison d’être – whether your company deals with consumers, other businesses, or both. Your customers pay your salary, not some faceless company.

Being customer-focused makes more than just instinctive sense, the more focused you are on customers; the more likely you are to meet and exceed their expectations, needs and wants. And the more you meet and exceed their expectations, needs and wants, the more likely you are to have happy, loyal customers. And the more happy and loyal your customers are, the more likely they are to spend above the category average with you. A win-win situation, if ever there was one.

I’m not going to pretend that being customer-focused is easy — because it’s not. It requires an absolute dedication to the cause, starting from the top, right on down throughout the organization. But the process involved is relatively simple.

I’ve broken it down into two lists – things you Need To Do, and things you Need To Review.

Need to Do

1. Listen. To your customers, to the market, to your staff. And never stop listening. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you know everything you need to know about people. Through listening come insights and insights are what drive any business.

Take FedEx for example. Years ago, when listening to people talk about their delivery needs, they realized that there was a market need for overnight deliveries guaranteed to arrive at a specific time the next day. The likely cost of this service was such that it would only be used when deliveries really did have to get there on time – so the on time guarantee meant everything. And FedEx delivers… that’s why they’re the #1 express transportation company.

2. Take Ownership. Own every issue that affects your customers, even if you don’t technically own what’s causing the problem. You may not have full control over your customers’ experiences, but if your customers are disappointed by something while using your brand, you’d better take ownership of the problem, and fix it. Because it‟s your brand that will take the flak… and the glory.

For example, when Virgin took over the two British Rail franchises in 1997, all it “owned” was the right to run certain timetables on certain tracks. The trains belonged to another company, as did the railway infrastructure. So, when a train was delayed as a result of a signalling problem, Virgin took responsibility for solving the problem on their customers’ behalf – apologizing and paying them compensation, while working behind the scenes with Railtrack to attempt to make sure the problem didn’t happen again. The bottom line was that the customers were sitting in a Virgin train when the delay occurred.

3. Be Consistent. Your customers need to know what to expect from you – not in a boring and repetitive way, but rather in terms of the quality and type of response you’ll give them. By all means, do the unexpected, exceed their expectation – but always do it in a way that’s consistent with their needs and wants, and your brand.

Southwest Airlines is a great example of this – you don’t always know what they have in store for you on a flight, but you do always know that it’ll be something you like.

4. Attention To Detail. Attention to detail is all about showing your customers that there is nothing you won’t do in order to give them the best possible Customer Experience.

It’s about that chocolate on your hotel pillow, that massage on your transatlantic flight, that reminder text about your partner‟s birthday, that unsolicited call to see if you’ve any problems using your new handset. It’s also about not being satisfied with anything less than perfection – about arriving exactly on time, about returning calls exactly when you say you will, about having wait times that last no more than the time you say they will.

5. Watch Your Language! I’m not suggesting you’re swearing at your customers…actually, it’s worse! You’re talking about them behind their backs in a pretty disparaging way. Hands up all of you who segment your customers by value, calling some your “most important/valuable” customers, and, by implication, others your “least important/valuable” customers? Many of you who segment your customers by lifestyle/lifestage, use quite unflattering names to describe certain segments?

Language guides behaviour and attitudes. So if you refer to your least important‟ customers in internal discussions or briefings, then there’s a strong chance that your employees will treat those particular customers as though they don’t matter.

You don’t mean for that to happen, but it does. Likewise with the lifestyle segments. Beware of using a single photo or personality to characterize a particular segment – Colin Farrell/Britney Spears may seem to characterize your “fast and loose” segment, but not everyone in that segment will be just like them. Instead of “most important/valuable” customers, how about something innocuous like “highest yield/highest spending”?

6. Measure Your Results. The only way to know if you’re really customer-focused is to ask them. Find out from your customers which particular aspects or attributes of your product or service are most important to them — whether it’s reducing wait times in retail outlets, or arriving on time, or having mobile coverage wherever you are, or having the latest fashions in stock, or having the best prices. The key here is from your customers’ — never presume that you know what they are.

When you know what to measure, set up independent monitoring systems — usually a combination of qualitative (to explore) and quantitative (to validate and track) research. Establish the benchmark levels for the attributes, set realistic short and long term targets, and then see how you do.

Need To Review

1. Your Brand. Does your brand stand for something that’s in keeping with the various needs and wants of your customers? If all of your employees “lived” the brand’s values, would the effect on your customers be positive? Too often, the brand dictates what a company does for its customers, whereas if you really customer-focused, then the needs/wants of customers should inform the brand.

2. Your Organization. Your organizational structure, your policies, your processes. Everything you do internally affects your customers. Does your structure encourage cross-functional working? Is it clear who is responsible for what? If your staff find it hard to manoeuvre around your business, then that will feed through to your customers – in the form of too much red tape, poor staff attitude (disgruntled staff  happy customers), inflexibility, lack of product knowledge, lack of consistency.

3. Your Products/Services. Do your products/services meet the various needs and wants of your customers? Are they consistent with your brand? Too often, products/services are driven by other competencies of the company, such as technology, or even by the Finance department.

4. Your Communication. Is the content of interest/relevant to customers? Does it demonstrate how your company delivers a better customer experience? Is the tone of voice used consistent with your brand’s values? And for communications within your company, are your employees getting the information they need to do their jobs to the best of their abilities? And are they getting it via the most suitable channels for the jobs they do (e.g. road-based staff need different channels from office based staff)? Are they getting it when they need it? It’s the internal communications that are most often neglected. And in many ways, they’re more important than your external communications — poorly informed staff will not deliver the best possible customer experience.

So, who are you working for now? Do you have the right processes and tools in place to be successful?

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

There are a few common imperatives shared by all successful customer-focused companies. Scholars may debate the exact number or wording, but it is universally agreed that to create a well-integrated organization, these basic characteristics must be in place. If any of these essential ingredients are missing, no organization will achieve its full potential.

1. A Customer-focused Vision: Nothing is more important than a clear vision. In a customer-focused organization, the vision that is not just making money, but has the customer as a central element. Every person should understand what that vision is — and how their role within the organization contributes directly to the implementation of that vision. A well-defined and widely shared and understood vision will allow the organization to work in alignment towards serving your customers well.

2. Inculcate the Voice of the Customer: Understand your customer intimately. Make sure your decision-making process includes their voice at the table. Evaluate all your processes and procedures to ensure they are designed with the customer in mind — not the organization. You will revolutionize your own behaviour and create linkages to your customers your competition will never duplicate.

3. Be a Student of the Best: Be a life-long learner. Study the methods of other successful companies, and share your learning in return. Japanese companies learned how to be great after World War II. Some North American companies have made great comebacks after studying those from around the world — while other have chosen not to learn and suffered greatly as a result (American Auto Industry comes to mind.)

4. Empower Your Customer Champions: Most employees want to serve customers well. When the organization demonstrates that providing exceptional service in an organizational priority, and that the employee are critical to success, then employees will rise to the challenge and amaze you with their commitment to exceed customer expectations.

5. Break through the Barriers to Success: Too many organizations have processes and procedures in place that inadvertently create artificial barriers to successfully serving customers. Procedures and processes are designed with the organization in mind versus the customer and resultant, the customer is unclear or frustrated. Are your sale processes clear to the customer, are your invoices easy to read and understand, do your policies make sense from the customers’ perspective?

6. Measure What Matters: Most organizations have measures in place. Successful organizations have the right measures. Measures that are aligned to their overall vision and that inform them on how they are doing with their ultimate judge of success. Measures of satisfaction, loyalty and intent to repurchase are just as important as profit and how long to answer a call. Successful organization measure and track their performance against their past performance, the customer desires and benchmark against others who are the best at what they do.

7. Lead by Example: Today, top corporate leaders personally put the customer first. They demonstrate their organizations’ vision in the way they lead each day. They believe and invest in people, constantly seek new and better methods, build customer-focused teams and celebrate performance that serves the customer.

I’m not going to pretend that being customer-focused is easy — because it’s not. It requires an absolute dedication to the cause, starting from the top, right on down throughout the organization. But the imperatives are relatively simple.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

We’ve all heard this expression, but I was reminded recently how important this adage is by an experience I had when I was a young Account Executive with one of Canada’s largest advertising agencies.

A large international client from Boston was in Toronto for a day of meetings and I was responsible for making sure that lunch was available.

In a trip to their office months earlier, the client had mentioned that he disliked chicken with bones — he preferred chicken breast and remarked that he always purchased boneless breast for his barbecue. The single exception was St-Hubert Bar-B-Q Chicken with dipping sauce which he had discovered on a trip to Montreal. He was so enamoured by their dipping sauce that he wished it was available in Boston where he would gladly picked it off the bones.

Based on this personal insight I ordered St-Hubert chicken for our lunch.

My agency President was aghast.

We were effectively serving a large international client a fast food meal rather than a traditional catered meal. He felt that we had lost an opportunity to impress this important client with our hospitality and even feared that we would be perceived as second rate versus our international cousins.

He quietly took me aside to give me some “constructive” feedback.

Fortunately, the client overhead his whispered comments.

The client indicated that he was thrilled that I had taken the time to arrange this special lunch for him and proceeded to sing my praises for remembering this small fact that he had shared with me months earlier.

He continued that this was a further demonstration of the care and attention that I applied to every aspect of his business and went so far as to state that he saw no need to replace the recently departed Account Supervisor on his business — voicing his confidence that I was ready to step into this role (a promotion that was wisely swift in coming after the meeting ).

My Perspective: Paying attention to our clients specific needs/desires allow us to tailor our products/service to their needs and build trust and confidence.

The client felt more important by the personalization of the meal choice than he would have ever felt regardless of the expense of a generic meal that may have been served to any client.

What might have been disaster for another client was pure magic for him. Are you looking for the opportunities to create a moment of magic for your clients — or just providing the same generic service o everyone?