Lessons

Lesson Info

The Change in Customer Service

There's a lot going on with customer service. And we've got to think about the one change we wanna make now to help us today with what really goes into great customer service. We have an in person guests gentleman named Mike, a Gran who is a producer and the founder of Weber Track. So, Mike, welcome to our our course. Thank you. Very good to see you. Good to see you. The cool thing, Mike, about this. Is that Mike? I've known you about three years, and we've never, ever met in person until right now. Until right now, at this very moment. Right now, both Mike and I are wearing makeup, so we don't really know what we really look like, right. But it's really so you've been in business for a while. Tell us a little about Web attract and what you do for customers, cause I know that customer service for you really is your sustainable competitive vantage. Absolutely. So what? We do it Webber tractors. We work with clients who are with usually in the B two b spaced it with an emerging or a glob...

al brand. And they have a desire to attract a fresh new audience using Webinars. And so we produce Webinars for our clients, and we manage everything across the life cycle. So it's a very high touch service where we do everything for them, helping them plan the strategy, identify the audience, recruit the audience, create the content, everything that needs to be done. And we do it for them with less hassle so they can focus on what they do best. And so what role does the customer experience really play into what you offer? Because I think a lot of custom people are listening to say, Well, I just do that myself well, when you're in a service business and that's what we're in because anybody could do a webinar. Not everybody, not a weapon, also created equal. But it's the service that makes the difference. So what differentiates what we do is the kind of service we give, and we go way out of our way to always put the customer first. You know, it's interesting with Webinars. We talk about audiences well. Whether it's an audience of one or 1000 they come first. So the center of everything we do is the customer experience. They have a day job. Okay, When they call us, it's not to see how we're doing. They need something right. They never say, Hey, Mike, what's up? What do you doing? How was your bike? Right? So we want to be, is responsive and listen and be attentive and anticipate. What are their needs? What can we do to help them so they can have a great experience? And that usually means not only what we think or what they think they need, but we want to give them what we know will help them be successful. So it's that that customer experiences everything, because if we do a good job the first time, they'll come back the second and third. And that's when we start to really be profitable with that experience. Now, people have different philosophies. Some people saying this one of the myths. I didn't mention that you should under promise and over deliver right. Do you really think that if someone you should deliver 100% 110% to 10% of 250% what kind of delivery should you do? Because some people say God, I could deliver 200%. I'm not sure that's right. I think it has a lot to do with who the individual is. Some people want a lot of high touch. Other people just give me the facts. You have to give them what they need. So two things happen. Ultimately, they get the outcomes are looking for, but to you don't do anything that could embarrass them or could give them any cause for not having confidence in the process. So I don't I think I know where you're going 250%. I don't always know that That's what you need to do, because they should have paid for that, right, because I believe you should give 110%. But if you give 111% maybe they should pay extra for that because you don't wanna move their ex patients so high. However, with that, I have kind of a philosophy that's some people look at things that you get before you give. I believe you have to give and then you get you give you get and people appreciate that because people today are not really used to getting good service services is easy. Throw away But if you think about going to a fine restaurant or a fine performance, you want the experience that even if that entertainer you've seen has has done the same jokes and the same songs, you walk out of there, you want to feel that he or she is performing for you and gave you an experience I'll never forget. That's the way we want to treat our clients. We want them to think they're the only ones in the world, even though they're not, even though we're multitasking. So I think it's important that that you give service that really makes people feel they're special different. So we're timing before as many times a customer. Mike won't tell you what they think. So how do you make sure we're living our service or a product? How do we make sure that they really are satisfied? Especially if they're not gonna say anything? How do you draw that out, or how do you create the environment? She didn't get some feedback from the customer. A lot of that comes from dialogue, and when you speak with people, they will telegraph how they really feel you will begin to hear patterns of thought of of words that are important. And you, you key in on those, for example. Well, for example, if What? For doing? Ah, webinar. Okay, there's three things that a client can get out of it. They can get away to promote their thought leadership, to promote their brand or to track fresh new sales leads. Which of those three are really a priority? We asked them that we go through a due diligence diligence, understand that. But if what we know that they really, really want our new sales leads, then we've got to focus in on that and make sure we get them. That if what they want is to promote the brand and promote their thought leadership. And that's where the emphasis is. We put the emphasis there. It's really listening. I mean, one of the hardest transitions I personally had to make us because my background is mostly in sales, and when you're in sales, you tend to talk and you don't listen. When you do this kind of work service work, working with clients, you have to be quiet, use both your ears and listen and have to listen for clues. So we listen to what they want, and we figure out how to get for them. And usually most clients are pretty reasonable. If you collaborate with them and you show them that you care and you're on their side, they will help you make them successful. So what do I do? I want you guys to think about some in your business. Some bad customer service issues you've had and maybe might, could help with how to resolve those. So what is Really? Do you think the first half a customer calls you up and says, You know, I'm really not satisfied what's going on? Many of us really want to ignore that right, or many of us want to placate that and just give them all sorts of stuff so they basically shut up. But what's the right way to handle if you really have a customer service or complaint? Because we've all really had that right? Well, you know, it's interesting. Sometimes we'll talk Teoh a new client, and they will share with us a horrible experience they had, and usually we can name that tune within a few moments, why they had that bad experience and what it really comes to is the basics. What we do is not rocket science, but what we do. We do very well and we have processes and checklists and best practices. And just as, uh, a captain of an airplane goes to a checklist and walks around the plane, and doesn't they do that to see if there's anything wrong? We do that, too. And so, by doing that, we know how to deliver something that will make them look at, I mean a simple little thing. One of the biggest problems is echoes. Audio is the Achilles heel of an event. We spend an enormous amount of time, almost obsessive them on a time making sure that properly, mike, they don't know they're not properly like they may think, speaking into a speaker, phone or work or speaking into a cell phone. But we will coach them on the right way to do it, and that can make or break and experience for them and for their audience. And often people don't do that. Those are simple little things that we do. So I think a lot of it is going. The extra mile doesn't cost anymore. It actually cost less so when you have Ah, everyone's when we come across a bad customer service experience, someone says, Mike, I'm just not really satisfied. No matter what you do, they explode. How do you react to that? Usually what we find is not so much the direct confrontation with that experience. It's somebody who doesn't want to follow. Our guidelines are our best practices, and we have come up with these best practices because they work. We have a methodology, best practices, and we have metrics. And we know what works if we can gain their confidence. And that's the most important. The most important thing in any client interaction is trust, so we make sure we're on time were crisp. We don't waste their time. If we develop that trust, they will usually follow our lead, an example like you gave there, somebody who just has their own agenda, and they just think they can do it their own way, and they can't and they get disastrous results. I don't normally find that I mean you can. You can sense how limited to this way at the end of the weapon on when we're all done, we do a debrief its virtual meeting. We have the organizer's and we have the presenters talk, and they will almost always say, Wow, it was a lot of work, but it was worth it. That was the best experience. You really helped us, and what we feel great about is it worked little. You know, we're little in their faces, faras tough love, but we know it's for their best interest. And I think a lot of people in business are afraid to exhibit a direct approach and say, You know, you can do it your way or however you want to say it. But here's what a best practices. Here's what I recommend, and if they trust you, they'll go along with it. But if they take the approach and they want to ignore you and do it their own way, that's a tough time. You really put your mark on it for the folks that are in the studio audience. Have you had a difficult customer service situation either that you resolved you think to really the customers and your satisfaction or something you should have done differently? I see Shannon, you're shaking your head. You have one well toe echo the story that I told yesterday about the harmonica situation. We I didn't meet his need because we didn't get in what he had ordered on time. But on the other hand, I felt that we came through with really good positive customer service in the end, because we ended up going above and beyond and making him a very satisfied customer because we ended up giving him more than he had ordered for. It was for Christmas, so we ended up supplying him with a better product. Then he had ordered a more expensive one as well as then when his came in. We also gave him that one, which, you know pretty much that was sort of a 250% return there. But it worked out in the end because he became a really good customers of ours. After that, um, but just is a comment of, like following up what you were saying dealing with customers. One thing that my partner always like to say is you don't have to take them out to dinner, but if we educate them in the process right off the bat, it usually ends up that they will become a much better customer. In the end, Azan example, we have a lot of DJs who come in and buy a stereo equipment, speakers and microphones and things like that. And sometimes they're They're very newbie to the whole process. They want to be a deejay. They want the whole cool scene, but they don't really know about audio. And so they just come in. Okay, I need a speaker, or I need speaker cable, and they don't really know what that means. So So as we have to ask a lot of questions, sometimes you get the frustrating person who goes. This is just what I need. I need this right here. Get, you know, sell it to me. Okay, well, I'm trying to help you so that you don't have to come back if it's wrong. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. But usually when they do listen and they take your advice, they get the right thing. They don't have to come back in exchange it. They're much happier customer, and they will come back later. So I think part of the bam good manifesto is really setting the customer expectation. Because guess what? If you don't set the expectation they'll set their own expectation and then may not work out Mike. I think that's exactly right. It is about expect. It's all about expectations. I mean, people we all have needs and people have expectations. They want to see him fulfilled with people's expectations are not fulfilled their upset. But what I learned is part of the education process is is engaging them and a little showmanship. Make him feel good. Make him feel that they're the most important person, which they are, and they will. If you're genuine, they'll feel that. But one of the things I learned when I was in the corporate world when it comes to situations that you can't deliver something that time, the only thing worse than bad news is bad news. Lee. That's right, exactly. So if you've got bad news to deliver, delivering its better toe, you know, bite the bullet and tell somebody that you know, if somebody has an expectation that they're going to get X amount of people to register and it's just not happening, you don't wait to the last minute. In fact, you prepare them through the process and you keep them informed off what's going on so they know what to expect and you give him an analysis. So I think those are the kind of things that really can make a difference. You know, I want to be informed. You want to be informed. I mean, I look at some of my service heroes. Is the local gas station they really care about when they fix my car or El Palmar, the Mexican restaurant you walk in there, you feel like a 1,000,000 bucks. They were happy to see you in those air. The models that I get, they really care and they give you that. It's hard to quantify, but they just give you that extra level of service. It's just the personal one on one. Does anyone else have a customer service door that they would like to talk to you that worked out well or didn't work out? Well, it's been interesting the customer service element of it, not so much online, but the students her in the studio. When we're taping, we have had we do Yogi Stream, which is live streaming of yoga, and some of the people in the audience have been nervous to be filmed. They're very uncomfortable with that. And we had one class where somebody was gonna walk out because she didn't want to, so we arranged for her to be in the back. But then the more we do this in, the more they're getting used to the camera being there. What I tried to explain to them a couple of weeks ago is just how powerful they are being part of that audience because they're showing everybody at home what riel yoga is like instead of a perfect DVD, and that they're actually helping promote yoga and more people doing it. And so they've taken a little bit of a different attitude towards it in participating, going Oh, I might actually be able to help somebody. I'm doing a good right because you engage with them. You gave them your attention. They felt sincerity, and they were happy to go along with that. They didn't feel that they were being manipulated. You know, it's very interesting. A lot of people really see customer service as a cost centre, but I really see, and I know you do, Mike. That's why I wanted him on the segment. You really see it as a sustainable competitive is really part of your revenue center, right? Well, yeah. I mean, if you're in the service business, what else do you have? But you're your ability to delight your customers, to give them value, to make them feel that they're getting their money's worth. Because, um, the true value of a business, any business is not having a great idea. Somebody write your check and where they keep writing your checks. And if you could get him to keep writing checks, you must be doing something right. Vote. They vote with their feet. So, Milko, in your business, you know you there's a lot of people that compete with you. There's a lot of people called financial advisors. How do you use customer service to really raise the experience? What kinds of things that you do, Because I know that's on your mind on a daily basis. Why I meet with them, um, initially for what we call Discovery meeting to get to know them one over. The question, I ask, is what's most important to them and prioritize and in terms of like how they like to be communicated. What kind of touch points if they want all the data. Also, they want just more than the fact and, um and we service them according to that, and I go back and make sure that still consistent. So it's, I think, well, about the communication. And so you bring up a good point, because how do you figure out how a customer really wants to be communicated with? Because there's a lot of personal person communication. There's a lot of technology communication we're talking about. How do you figure that out? That someone really want to be text someone being a phone call to someone, just want have a cookie on their things that says, Hi, arena on back? I A lot of it is body language, and since everything we do is virtual, we hardly ever meet our clients to me three years to meet him. I mean, this is this is an unusual case. Is that digital body language that they communicate and you listen? You can feel their attention. Are they engaged? Is like hurry up, rapper. They want to know more, and I think that's a great example. You gave there some clients. We have that love the analytics would give him. They eat it up, they pour over, and it's not what they're expecting. And that's a good thing. They're They're expecting something. Nothing like we give them with a narrative that's a personal Other people, they just want to go to the last page. How many people showed up? So I think you have. You have to know who you're dealing with. But if you give people some thing more than they expected, it doesn't really cost you to your point. It adds, and they appreciate and they know they know you're committed, you care and what customers know you care. They feel good because that's one less thing they have to worry about. Very interesting what you're saying As you were talking, I was thinking exactly the same thing. And also, if you see what you do as a commodity and realize that providing an excellent customer service experience is all you've got, then you really put a lot more energy that I know that when I go speak at many locations, I get contract ID, speak for 45 minutes or now, or whatever it is, but I always show up early. I always listen to the speeches before me. I always meet the audience ahead of time and always stay late. It's not something that people expect, but I'm trying to differentiate myself from the other tens of 1000 other small business speakers that are really out there. And I think that everybody that has a business, no matter how large or how small you have to think about, how are you really gonna differentiate yourself? Filled with Karen's business, for example, there's a lot of yoga video business that are out there. How is she gonna differentiate herself? And I think what happens is we set a lot of policies up, But then the rubber meets the road and we say, Sure, I'm going to give a refund Lifetime to anybody If you weren't happy with my products, I'll get back to any time. And then after a year when someone contacts me, says, You know that video I bought from you for $297 it wasn't what I thought. That's really when your customer service gets tested when you have to refund that 219 $97 right? Yeah. I mean, just a quick story. So we were hired by a client to produce this event. They usually bring the speakers, the speakers air their clients or their partners, or or whatever. So we're serving a lot of different masters. If we notice that one of their speakers needs some work, some coaching, some one on one, we will respectfully support them during the process and ask them, Would you like to have a one on one afterwards? Sure, and we'll work with them one on one. We don't charge extra for it, and they appreciate it. The client appreciates because he says they're looking out for us. They're going to make us look it. It really cost less to do that. If in fact I think it costs. You get so much more in return when you do that. But if you take care of people and you anticipate what their needs are and you make him feel good, I got to keep coming back because most people won't do that. Excellent points. Well, Mike, I really appreciate you being on this segment. Where can people learn more about the wonderful work you do? Well, the name of our company is Web attract, and if you go on online. It's Web attract dot com on mike at weber track dot com. And if anybody has any interest in in webinars or live events would love to talk to you. Not not a probably a lot of fun to hear what your objectives are, Mike, Thanks so much for being on the court. Thank you, Ari. Thank you, Mike. Around. Applause. Thank you. So now we're gonna go to our workbook. And since when? Towards the end of this class, we're not even going to fill in the blanks anymore. We're going to multiple choice, right? Because we like this. And so just yell out what you think the correct answer is here, Right? So let's start with number one. What has made the biggest change the customer service off the last years? A better transportation, be technology, or see pressure on low prices technology, Of course. Number two, why is customer service the new marketing? A company's reputation can spread quickly through online tools in the Web. Companies can only differentiate themselves the customer service or every company needs to improve their service. Why is what's me? What do you think? Actually, the answer is both mostly both because I think I think that both, um, should be. I think I picked one of them, but I think now they're both right. So what is faux personalization? How company makes believe they care about customers, how a company personalizes their service, the customers to technology or a company that offers monograms on their products. What is faux personalization? How company personalized their service? Exactly. We've seen a lot of examples through that Number four. The social media make customer service easier or harder. Both customers, by when they know like end things is also a good good wrap up here. Ah, corner, Harvard Business Review Customers are more likely to talk positive value business talk. Never lied about business or not. Talk about your business at all. B B Talk Negative about your business. How many conversations do customers have per week about parking services they buy? We cover this several times. 53. What do we think? Who's got the number? 53? No, it was your second choice. Be What would your third choice, What customers trust most about a company's website. They're advertising recognition from other people or their sales person. Be being be Because, of course, that's the social proof that we've been talking about. What makes customers most mad approx it don't work on helpful sales. Reps are having repeat the same thing. To accompany over and over and over again resolve their issue. C. C. Of course, we all can relate to that right. Number 10. What does it customer remember most? They're peaking. Last experience, their worst experience, their memory and loyalty or short Hey, of course, their peak. And the last experience Just because you have a customer that has been when satisfied a very long time, it's almost like What have you done for me lately? So you have to continually to offer them great customer service experience? Why is offering a great customer service experience so hard? Is it difficult to find good employees tough to always offer the best services? What is great? Customer service changes from customer to customer, see excellent was the biggest penalty for not staying in touch with a customer. You lose the ability, influence their future buying decisions. They forget about your company by Africa Petr that begin to talk badly about your company on the Web. There's only one Answer this one. See who would like to choose a. Because remember, we talked about how that you do use their influence. If you don't stay in touch with customers over a long period. Time what? Get what gets in the way of great customer service believing unhappy customers or part of a business. Bad proxies service a poor management team? A. Well, this one is all the above right, cause it really does number 14. Where is the first step in creating a customer service manifesto? Hiring experienced customer service staff Always deliver what you promise. Installing affected email and telephone system be always living on what you promised. I know again, intellectually, we think, Well, that makes sense. But it really is hard consistently day after day to deliver on exactly what you promised. Think about how many times you attempted to break your promise. And that's why we make those promises publicly, just saying that I would donate and we're gonna find out pretty soon where the money is going to go for the Arena Shana contest here. Right? But you make those public commitments like Sally is gonna get her email down to zero. What is the second step of creating a customer service manifesto. Set low customer service expectations. Post the manifesto on Facebook, trained the company staff on the process and have feedback loops. Excellent. And this is really important because if you don't train your staff in what amounts to good customer service, how can you expect them to know what to do? Number 16. How do you manage customer expectations? Clearly set them for a customer. Always follow through. Ask the customer what they are and exceed them. Ignore the customer. Deliver what you think See is the Steve Jobs method right? Hey, clues set them exactly and always follow through. Number 17 where the most buying decisions based on careful customer research in motion or lowest price. The motion. We talked about that yesterday that people think that decisions are rational, but most decisions air tied to emotionally. What do you think? And we spent a lot of time talking about branding customers always by when a there in pain and have money to solve it. They find the best price and jump in, or they see it reference on Facebook by a friend. You'll never gonna forget that right people by when they're in pain in painkillers. 19. A company's brand needs to solve a customer's pain or great need. Ah, desire with the company thinks they need or issue what's on the mind of this thing this moment. Hey, hey, Absolutely. And the last question I have is what does not. What does not add to a value of a customer? A buying additional proxies, services, referring, others buying once and leaving. See right, because we don't want remember, we're talking about the whole lifetime value of a customer. So this ends the customer service section. And now I'd really like to wrap up the entire two day course by, of course, ending the way I started by saying, telling a Zen parable, All right, they're these two months now. Of course, Al is going to say, Is it the same two months? No. Right there, sitting by a river. It's not the same river, and they see a bride sitting there and she's crying. And they asked her what raw what's wrong? And she says that she can't cross this river because the river is too high. She's afraid she's gonna ruin her wedding dress. So the two monks. They look at each other. They're not really sure what to do because, you see, they are forbidden by their monthly vows to touch other women. However, the first monk, he doesn't hesitate. He picks up the bride. He he runs across the river with the bride. He puts her down the other side. She's very happy. She didn't ruin her wedding dress, and she very happily goes off your wedding. But the second monk sees what the first monk has done. He raced across the river, screaming at the first month, saying, How could you have touched that woman? How could you broken all of our monthly vows? They're walking back to the monastery that night, and the first monk is enjoying the bright sunshine, his face and the cool breeze in his hair. But the second monkey piece, berating the first month, saying, How could you have touched that woman? How could you broken all of our religious vows? Get back to the monastery that night and all the monks sit down to a very peaceful dinner. Not a lot of conversation going around the table in the monastery dinner in time. It's kind of like in my house, we sit down with my sons. No one's really saying anything. Do you know what I mean? But the second monk starts laying in the first month and says, How could you have touched that woman? The first monk says. What woman? The second monk says. That woman that you carried across the river, the first monk says, I only carried her across the river. You carry her all way back to the monastery, shake your heads if you know what it means shaking. Anyways, people think you're sleeping. So what do you take away from that story? Shanna? Does that story mean Remembers N parables could mean anything. Will you deal with the problem at hand? And don't let it stay with you forever? You deal with it and then let it go and let it go. That's really what I take away from it. And the reason that I'd like to tell the stories that the reason that we are able to jumpstart our business is is because we have a very hard time. As I said from beginning letting go the way that we've always done business, we think that we really should let it go we have to do is we're trying to change what we do business. Please think of Sally, right? Please think of the idea of letting go by coming to a decision, right? Learning what you can. Letting go and bouncing. I wrote a whole book on bounce about how to let go. Remember, we always can't learn something for failures, right? Sometimes it just thinks, But the most important thing we can do is to let go. In order to jump start your business, you have to be able to let go of the way you've done things, not keep carrying with you and try something new. But the most important part is not to try as a result of this course. Ah, lot of things knew. What you have to do is you have to try one thing new. Remember when I was talking about striving for minimal achievement? Striving for minimal achievement has to do with focusing on one thing at a time. Don't go to the gym five days a week. The star don't meditate for 20 minutes a day, Start very small by making that one change. Once you make one change, it's much easier. Make a second change in 1/3 change