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Identifying Preferences: Pay Attention

Ah lot of this when s o the first category is observed the second is pay attention and some of you were like oh well those air kind of the same thing well the reason I break them out is there's a there's a difference between kind of observing and taking something in and coming into a situation with the goal of I'm looking I'm paying attention I'm ready I'm not just doing the big thirty five thousand foot observe be aware of my surroundings I'm looking for specific things I'm looking for interesting points and I'm probably freaking some of you out right now with my energy but this is the intensity you need to bring to it with your customers you need to come in on the prowl where is it where's that interesting thing how can I pay attention? I was in las vegas two weeks ago now most people associate las vegas hotels with places like the bellagio treasure island paris rio excalibur you know bally's and gm the cosmopolitan you could learn a lot about people by which hotel they named first i...

n vegas I'm just going to say all right circus circus whatever it may be people throw out their names to their places and I got to be honest with all due respect to the folks that hosted the event at the mandarin oriental I was like really of all the places we could stay in vegas like mandarin oriental like vegas is pa's as and glitz and like min in oriental is very nice it's very, you know, wonderful service and it has a reputation of being one of the best service hotels in the world. We were in vegas. I mean, come on, it should be something that's a little gaudy, a little something that, you know, you hoped things were gonna happen there that you're not going to talk about after you leave vegas, right? What happens in vegas stays in vegas, some in the hotel and I have been fighting a cold for about five weeks now. I mean, it's just been absolutely miserable. I get sick about once every two years and when I do man, it gets me and so I had traveled with some cough medicine and the reason this photo's a little bit blurry and again, my wife has probably horrified and all the women in the room are they're like, oh my gosh, seriously, that looks like a train wreck. Ok, let me explain this was in my bag when I flew and the cap wasn't entirely on tight. So what kind of the pressurization? It leaked all over right that's? Why there's also residual in the bottom of the cup after I used it, I wash the cup out I'm not totally pathetic, right? But I got to the hotel I checked in and I opened my bag I put all my stuff out and I had to go to the next thing like I didn't have a lot of time to kind of clean it up and I looked at it and I was like, oh, man, it spilled all over inside the bag and this is annoying that I'm gonna have to deal with it when I get back from the event and I started to leave the bathroom and I thought, you know, I've heard that the man in oriental has some of the finest service in the world as a customer experience guy that's always trying to pay attention and observe I wouldn't let that fly if I was in housekeeping you know what? I'm going to snap a picture and see what happens? Maybe something will happen maybe it won't I'm not trying to test them I wasn't going to say, well, if they don't do something amazing and special, I'm gonna hate this hotel forever but I said, you know what? I've heard good things let's let's see just how good they are I snapped the picture it's why it's blurry and I left I was gone all day it's vegas I came back at about three o'clock in the morning right great fun event great day and this is what I found now I walked into the bathroom and I said oh my gosh they did it they did it was like it worked I was even trying to bait them and trap him but oh my god they did it this's gonna be fantastic I'm going to be able to tell stories about this and what's fascinating creative life folks you're hearing this story really for the first time I've only shared it with one other audience and I'm gonna take the video of this and I'm gonna be sending it to the manager of the mandarin oriental because this blew my mind and this guy who works in customer experience it takes a lot to impress me this blew my mind so when I came in I looked and immediately I could tell oh my gosh look how clean it is they cleaned off the side they cleaned off the cup they cleaned off this little random thing around the top there is no residual this looks beautiful this looks like it almost came fresh out of the box except we see this little stain here that suddenly lets me no no it's still mine this is a new one this is still mine and as I walked into the room and I looked at it, I was like, well, wait a second before it was just sitting on the marble what's that I hope you're feeling better mr coleman whoa kelly at the mandarin oriental in las vegas, blew my mind and is a guy who gets the chance to speak on customer experience all around the world. This example will be in every presentation I give going forward. What was the impact on their business off kelly taking extra little effort to clean off that model and write the note? Well, they're going to get free publicity from me for life. I don't know how many people are on right now, but I will say in terms of registrations we had for this class, we were well north into four, five figures, so there are a lot of people hearing about this phenomenal cleaning the bottle would've been great writing the note blew my mind with my name, and so the fascinating thing we're going to talk about this is the hotel knows my name, they know the room I'm staying in. There is a name associate id with my room I didn't necessarily think that housekeeping me of that at many hotels they don't I don't know whether kelly, when she gets the list of room she's cleaning that day has the name of the customer on that list or whether kelly came into the room saw the bottle cleaned the bottle, called down to the front desk and said what's the name of the guest in this room and the reason I make that distinction is sometimes we had the customer information at our fingertips, and we can do the wow, right then she may have known because of the systems they have created, something to think about for your business. How can you create systems that put the customer information at the fingertips of your front line? Employees don't talk about that tomorrow, or it may have been a front line employees who is so empowered, who is so comfortable with the service ethic, who is so bought into we are here to serve and to create memorable experiences that she said, you know what? There's a chance to do something cool here, let me go find a little more information. If the noted too, said, I hope you are feeling better, it would have been very nice. It would have been memorable. It would have been in the presentation, it wouldn't have blown my hair back. This blew my hair back. Holy cow, you can do this in your business. I don't care what business you ran some of you might be thinking, well, charlie, this is fine and dandy if you're the mandan oriental and like they charge hundreds of dollars a night for a room and it's a big no international company, and they have all this stuff I don't care what business you're in, I don't care what industry it is I don't care where operating in the world if you start caring, if you start showing your customers that you care, you will blow their minds it's a piece of paper and a pen it's a piece of paper and a pen, by the way, it's a piece of paper that's already in the room next to the bed it's a pen that's already in the room next to the bed. These air sunk cost these are the cost of doing business. The hotel has already said these air, every hotel I've ever stayed in has a note pad with some type of a writing instrument in it. This the first time I've ever had somebody from housekeeping leave me a note and honestly, I've had the joy and pleasure of staying in some amazing, fantastic hotels all around the world. This is the first one that really got my attention guess where I'll be staying in the future even if I go to vegas because I believe in supporting businesses, they're creating amazing customer experiences, and I hope you do too. I hope by the end of our three days together you're looking at the vendors you work with, you're looking at the different businesses you interact with and saying, you know what their experience is, horan I've been given the money because I think they're the only option. You know what? I'm going to stop giving them money, and I'm gonna go find somebody that gets it. I'm gonna go some find somebody that I can work together with. The other thing we can do is trust ask it's really a simple as asking the questions. There are a ridiculous number off online survey tools that you can use personally, I used surveymonkey, it works great. I've been a customer for many, many years, like frankly, I think I was one of their customers in the first six months to a year after they started the company, but survey gizmo fluid surveys quick serve aizu meringue pole daddy qualtrics. If you search online survey tool, these will come up and a bunch more. Okay, I'm not necessarily plugging any of these, but the question I would ask you is, how often are you asking your customers? Questions? Some of you are like oh, well, I asked them right after the checkout card. I have this serving. We have this wonderful example this morning off. What the ideal type of survey is the company mascot. A dog asking a question about your favorite tv show that's great it's, playful it's fun. What we often see is thies huge long survey forms or these forms when somebody goes on to buy something, have you ever been on one? These websites where they're like you, khun download our free pdf to do so? Please give us your email first name last name title, mr mrs position in the company name of the company mailing address of the company, including fax machine stop asking for fax numbers right now. When is the last time you sent a fax? No one is sending faxes anymore. Stop sending faxes. I'm sorry, cos that makes facts company that makes fat that make fax machines be done with it. It's like saying what's. The name of your horse. You don't have a horse anymore. You have a car. Those days are over. Stopped collecting that information. It doesn't exist. Okay, it's. Kind of like the companies that have the list down. And they're like home phone work phone cell phone and you target people who are under twenty five. They have one phone. It is the cell phone. You don't even need to ask. You can just say phone. They will figure it freaking out. What are you asking people? Right so this is an actual survey that I did for the audience at one of the speeches I'm given and as you look at this you're like wait a second joey I'm seeing that we're to question number fourteen that feels like a lot of questions on your service my surveys have a lot of questions and something to look at that no like whoa what's your fill rate typically ninety percent of my audience fills out a survey after a speech ninety percent do you know why? Because I make it worth their while I say here's the deal I just gave a speech I really hope you liked it I'm going to do this sort of survey of sending the email there are a bunch of questions but it will only take about fifteen minutes to complete owned by the way everyone who completes the survey gets entered into a drawing tto win an ipad what everyone in this room so the theory being if the room only has twenty people your competition is twenty other people for an ipad owned by the way you should know that statistically, some of the people aren't even going to fill it out so your odds or even better than that that's um interesting language and semantics that actually makes more people fill it out okay if we want to talk about influence and how that works but then they're happy to give me more information and look at what I do so you know we break it down first name last name title company contacting you email and phone mailing address for prizes I let them know when I'm asking the only reason I'm asking for your mailing addresses to send you prizes if you would like to receive that prizes fill out the mailing address if you would not like to receive a prize don't fill out the mailing address by the way there's an ipad potentially that could be one here but you don't have to give me your address which totally your choice but then I don't hit them with a postcard every two weeks with a coupon for money off their next speech I on ly send prizes unexpected gifts unexpected presence that's all I used the mailing address for now in your business you may say well joey, my business we actually see send things who ok that's fine I wouldn't write for prizes I might write for products, additional updates and maybe some unexpected gifts what but if you're gonna put and some unexpected gifts dammit send some unexpected gifts don't set the expectation and then fall down on it. This is one that is very rarely asked your preferred method of contact, email, phone call, text message direct mail or brother now this is really fun two things number one people will often mark the one that actually is their preferred method so like for me the way I would like you to contact me in this type of setting if I were filling out a survey like for some random thing or website I'm going to say email why? Because I really don't think you're going to contact me with anything that's that important if one of my clients said showy what's your preferred method of contact my cell phone don't send me an e mail I get hundreds of emails today call my cell phone if you're a client that's the access you get that's the access you pay for that's the preferred method of contact if you're some general rando that I'm not that interesting talking to female often the moat historically the most frequently answered question on that survey is direct mail because it's a smallest interruption ah phone calls an interruption and email feels they're already cluttered in box they don't want to get a text message so they'll put direct mail not that they really want you to send them direct mail it's that the way they process stroke and direct mail is to stand over there garbage can and go like this so you want to check if they do mark direct mail are they really asking for direct mail or they trying to say seriously don't contact me again which is why earlier in this thing question number ten is I would like to contact you about once every six weeks with a specific, relevant piece of information that if any point it isn't relevant to you, you hit unsubscribe and you'll be gone forever and I'll actually send you a prize for unsubscribe ing because it means I've screwed up your down in the hole and I got to pull you back up so then they're okay with it. I said the expectation the funny thing about including other is the kind of person I really like it's a little crazy, a little radical, we'll put something funny in there they'll put like smoke signal or passenger pigeon or you know, I like to be contacted by singing telegram yes, who then sends a singing telegram if you're willing to play if you're gonna have fun, I'll have fun with you if you want to mark one of these other things that's fun, I'm not saying you have to do something wild and crazy and to be honest that's why in the survey I don't give examples of what I mean by other because I don't somebody just to write it because they saw it on the list. But if you're creative and playful, I want to know that because you're right in my sweet spot for an ideal customer, the interesting thing is when it comes to looking at surveys, we want to make sure that we're using the right tool for the job this is not the right tool for the job. What we want to figure out is, is the survey asking the right questions? Is it gathering the right pieces of information? Okay, this interesting quote from booze and company customer service it's on one of the largest untapped resource is for companies, customer feedback and proprietary customer data. A significant amount of you have surveyed your customers. You've asked them questions it's sitting in a database that you haven't looked at in years stop doing that, you were going to ask the question, dammit, act on the answer or else just don't even ask the question, because if you ask me what my preferred method of contact is and I say email, and then you call me three days from now, I hate you and I want you to feel that emotion. I don't use that word lightly because that's, how your customers are reacting, they're like, really? You asked, I told you and you did the damn opposite! Stop doing it and they swear, and they swear, worse than I'm swearing customers give you little golden nuggets, they give you the information, you just got to be willing to reach out and grab it, okay? One of my clients, s m o is based on the east coast there home heating oil and propane company we built a website for them, okay? And this is a page from their website about signing up to become a propane customer. Okay, so here's the photos, the information and then the form that they have to fill out so let's, zoom in on the form, complete this form and a client care representative will contact you about setting up your account first name, last name, phone, email account number parentheses not required. Now some people would look at that and they're like, well, wait a second, joey, this is for someone to become a propane customer. Why would you put account number like they're not a customer yet? All contraire, a significant portion of their customers are people that currently have home heating oil, and they're switching over to propane, so this allows us to very quickly pull up and identify their account because there's a better deal if you're switching than if you're just coming off the street. Okay, street address. Why? Because we actually have to come to your house and install this city state owned by the ways of the select a state on lee gives the three states they do business in okay, and I just watched half the people that I'm gone thank god because that's what if you live in a state that's lower in the alphabet oh I don't know like massachusetts washington washington's not as bad as you can quick scroll all the way to the bottom and catch it and that you're really screwed if it's like nevada because you're like wait wait out there this right? You know or oregon right? It only shows those zip code because they sometimes have people apply for this service that lives outside the zip code they serve and so immediately if that zip code modifier kicks out they get an email back that says oh, I'm so sorry we don't yet serve your area if you'd like we can call and talk to you about the possibility of when we might serve you're in the future but if not we don't want to bother you anymore oh thank I didn't read that on the faa cues but thanks for building in intuitive knowledge into the form to help me understand I shouldn't be expecting that then we have preferred method of contact, email or phone those are the two methods we're giving you this is a new customer we want to be able to respond email or phone we're not doing male on this one right because we want to sign them up preferred time to contact morning afternoon or evening we had a long conversation when we set this up and I said here's the good news people are going to love this here's the bad news they tell you and you call in the wrong time slot, they hate you, you got to be careful with this stuff, all right? Zoom and we see him up close, right? And then we had them able to select the product or service they're interested, and I would like to learn more about so they can type in more things, like I'm considering this or what do we do next? Okay, we have this slide or this worksheet rather it's a slide here that we're looking at, but you have a worksheet, a pdf that you can download if you're online or we have him here for a studio audience where you can fill in the bubbles of the things you're tracking now. I asked some of the people in the studio audience to fill in during one of the breaks just out of curiosity when we get over to preferences when it says their preferred mailing address preferred email preferred phone how many of you are tracking that right now? Show of hands what I love is some hands went up right immediately. Some hands were like kind of, which means you're sometimes doing it sometimes not let me ask this one prefer day of the week to be contacted, how many of you are tracking that? Not really anyone right is there a day of the week that you like to do business with kind of outside vendors look at everyone's going yes that's friday afternoon when I don't wanna work that's what I do all this other random stuff that's built up all week don't contact me on monday morning I am stacked monday morning why aren't we asking would you be willing to tell someone what day you'd like to be contacted everybody's like coke? Yeah, absolutely but we're not doing it with our own customers some to think about let's talk about the impact off what doing this and what paying attention to this stuff actually is as we've been going to the presentation you've met me as joey this is my legal name charles joseph cole in the third nice and pretentious sounding okay and the name's never stuck since I was a little kid I've gone by joey it's never stuck I tried I had the small period when I was practicing law for about two years of the five years that I was practising law where I went my joe just you know I'm watching like the reaction of the people in the room there like you're you're not a joke your way too ridiculous to be a joe you're you know, more childlike right? I have the maturity of a trial this well so the name fits it's perfect when I applied to go to college and when I applied to go to law school, the application said, prefer name and I put joey and it said name and I put charles joseph coleman the third because you know, you do all this stuff with financial aid and everything has to match up with your legal name, but they had a column for preferred name and so I put joey, it is not there actually, it is significantly part of the reason why I chose both of these schools both of these schools for their acceptance letter to me said dear joey, many of their competitors said, dear charles, I'm never going by charles even all my legal signature, I go by sea, joseph, I'm not into the whole truck thing. It's not my scene. No, charles, right? Never, charles and yet when they're on the cusp of asking me for it out of money, which name are they gonna use? Well, let's talk about how much money? Okay, the time I went to notre dame, I was trying to research aside, I think this is clothes all in room and board tuition. Everything like that. Just under thirty thousand dollars a year, four years of college time, I went to law school, g w on the top law schools in the country, the time ball, pig room aboard tuition, travel, everything else thirty eight thousand dollars a year. Three years of law school. We do the math. We add those up. I was promised you wouldn't be a lot of math on day two by calling me joey. These two organizations made collectively two hundred and thirty three thousand dollars. There is a real financial impact to this. This isn't shows. Oh, what name do you prefer to be called? The most pleasing sound to the human ear they've done studies on this is the sound of your own name. This has been proven in the laboratory. The most beautiful sound. The way your brain lights up. The way your emotions react is the sound of your own name. Let's. Get the name right. And I just also point out that we have a sherry and a sherry in the audience. And not once as joey gotten it wrong and mixed it up. And I have noticed that. Well, thank you, it's. My pleasure, but what's. Interesting. And thanks for sharing that. Because if there is the chance for a mix up your hyper sensitive to it, right? And if you get it right, you win. Now, if I mix up, does it mean shri hates me? Probably not, but if I keep calling, unlike cheri, cheri cher it by about the third time actually, by about time, to one and a half to she's starting to get irritated. Three she's. Not even gonna pick up the mike if I call honor.