Archives for posts with tag: Customer Experience

Customer Service is Never Out of Date

December 24, 2012 //
1

Now I know where I get it from.

My father.

Regular readers of this blog know of my borderline fanaticism in the area of Guest Services related to ChurchWorld. Some leaders cringe at those words, but the fact is people who come to church are consumers, and leaders in ChurchWorld can learn a lot from good customer service practices wherever they find them – even in a 1946 training manual for Gulf Dealers.

After my father was discharged from the Army Air Corps following WWII, he and his brother built a Gulf Service Station outside of Nashville TN. My father operated it for 44 years, closing it when he retired in 1993. Growing up in that gas station (literally – our house was about 100 feet away) I learned a lot about how to deal with people by watching my father interact with his “customers.” What I didn’t realize until recently was that his natural, easygoing style was augmented by customer service training materials supplied by the Gulf Oil Company.

During the days following my father’s funeral last month, my sons and I took great delight in looking through some of the items he had saved and stored over his life. When my oldest son found this manual, I knew it would become a special part of my Guest Services resources.

It seems that good service is never out of date.

Notice the red dotted line around the vehicle – that’s the suggested travel path for the service man – or two – to take when a customer pulled up to the gas pumps to have gasoline put into his tank (I realize many readers have no clue nor experience of this, but it did happen!). Here are a few of the suggestions for engaging the customer:

  • Always be prompt – the service plan starts when you see a customer driving into your station. Whenever possible, be alert and at his side when his car stops, ready to greet him.
  • Greet the customer – your greeting is your first important step in showing courtesy to the customer, and it should be friendly, cheerful, and always in your own words.
  • Acknowledge the other customer – when a second car drives in, you should immediately recognize the other customer and saying you’ll be right with him. This kind of greeting pays off because you not only please the customer who is waiting but you also please the customer you are waiting on, who notices that you are courteous to others.
  • Improve the rear view – while you are at the rear of the vehicle putting gas in, wipe the rear window and tail lights. Should a light be out, call it to the attention to your customer at the proper time.
  • Look at those tires - while you are back there, take a look at both rear tires for cuts, blisters under inflation, etc. and make a mental note to tell your customer before he leaves your station.
  • Work to the front end – walk around the right side, cleaning the right windshield, checking the wiper blades, and inspecting the front tires.
  • Under the hood – check the oil and water levels; it’s your responsibility to protect your customer’s car. If any is needed, ask him if you may bring the levels up to the correct level.
  • Keep alert under the hood – while you have the hood open, keep alert for other service needs. Train yourself to quickly observe all needs, informing the customer as appropriate.
  • Collect for the sale – it is important to give the customer the right change, so count the change back into his hand. If he is using a credit card (yes, they had those in 1946!), learn to fill out the invoice quickly and accurately.
  • Courtesy is pleasant – before your customer leaves the station thank him and ask him to come in again. By this time you should have learned his name, so make it personal.
  • Help him safely on his way - if your station is on a busy street where it’s difficult to get into traffic, give your customer a hand. Guide him into the moving traffic safely. He may not expect this added courtesy, but he’ll be glad to get it and remember it. Every courteous act will be appreciated by your customers, and make them regular patrons of your station.

And a closing reminder:

With the Gulf Service Plan, every time you do some little service for the customer, it makes him realize that you know your business, and that you’re looking after his welfare. These services keep your customer coming back again and again. Good will – the tendency of the motorist to return to a place where he has been well-treated – is being created every time you give him not only what he wants, but what he needs. He remembers you are the man who looks after his best interests by taking good care of one of him most prized possessions – his car.

To all of us who live in 24/7 always on, wired world, the actions above probably seem like a throwback or an anachronism of the good old days.

I happen to think they are a timeless reminder that service still matters - even in ChurchWorld, where there is no “product” per se, but the outcome of the interactions with our Guests may be eternal.

Thanks Dad, for the lessons you taught me even when I didn’t realize it, and for the lessons you still teach me after you’re gone.

Favorite post from April, 2012

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Categories Family Matters, Guest Services

Setting the Stage

March 31, 2012 //
1

Get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.

- Steve Jobs

Today’s post wraps up a three-day look at Carmine Gallo’s newest book The Apple Experience. It’s about the secrets Apple Retail Store uses to build insanely great customer loyalty. But it’s about so much more. If you lead an organization that serves people, you need to understand and apply the principles in this book.

If you’re just dropping into this series, you really need to go here for the introduction, then visit here to understand how to inspire your internal customer and here to learn how to serve your external customer. It’s this simple: if you don’t understand how to inspire and serve first, nothing in this post will matter.

Cosmetic changes don’t matter if you have people who don’t like their supervisor, their jobs, and can’t communicate with customers.

But even if you have the people and the communication right, poor packaging will actually detract from the experience you worked so hard to achieve. “Poor packaging” in this case can refer to your digital presence (or lack thereof), your branding efforts, and your physical spaces.

Eliminate the clutter

According to Apple designer Jonathan Ive, “We are absolutely consumed by trying to develop a solution that is very simple because as physical beings we understand clarity.” Though he was speaking about product design, this philosophy extends to the design of the Apple Store experience as well. In Apple’s world, anything that detracts from the user’s experience is eliminated.

Apple cares about things other organizations don’t. It cares about elegance, space, and simplicity. It cares about smudges. Most people don’t care about this as much as Apple, and that’s the difference.

Pay Attention to Design Details

Steve Jobs once said “Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”

Design matters.

Design Multisensory Experiences

When you walk into an Apple Store, the screens on MacBook computers are set at ninety degree angles, forcing you to touch the computer and move the screen to your ideal viewing angle. In One to One workshops, Creatives don’t touch the computer without permission – instead, they guide customers to find the solutions themselves. Everything in the Apple Store is connected for the purpose of encouraging customers to touch, play, and interact with the devices.

Steve Jobs intuitively understood that there’s power in touch.

By giving Apple’s customers the ability to manipulate the devices for themselves and to play, learn, and have fun, customers would be able to immerse themselves in the ownership experience.

Applications for ChurchWorld

Unclutter your space - ten years of research have confirmed that open spaces and uncluttered environments make customers more relaxed and receptive to connecting with your message

Open space applies to your digital world – eliminate clutter on our site; be sparing in the use of content

Take a field trip – visit Apple stores and  AT&T retails stores for design inspiration

Review every detail of your Guest experience – consider it from their point of view: website, marketing materials, physical spaces. Are all the design elements telling the brand story you want to convey?

Develop a consistent experience - train yourself and your team to make every experience memorable from one event to the next by minding the details and not slacking off

Start from scratch – use a mental exercise by asking the question “How do we want our Guests to feel when they experience our church?” New questions will usually give you new answers.

Create multisensory experiences – using all five senses in your environments are at the heart of breathtaking, memorable experiences

Bombard your brain with new experiences - Steve Jobs said that “creativity is connecting things.” He meant that creativity comes from seeking out new experiences, which in turn can help develop creative, groundbreaking ideas.

Just Make It Great

I have a passion to engage ChurchWorld leaders in elevating the Guest experiences in their churches to the level of Apple – or Disney – or Nordstroms - or Zappos. I get pushback on that all the time, and that’s okay. You may not like it, but we are all consumers, and the people we are trying to reach live in a consumer culture. If we are going to have experiences in physical spaces to try to reach them, we need to learn tools and techniques that will help us create WOW! experiences.

The stories and thoughts over the past few days from The Apple Experience have been a tremendous resource for my personal toolbox of Guest Services practices. I’m indebted to Carmine Gallo for his newest work – along with The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. This trilogy of Apple inspiration ought to be required reading for ChurchWorld leaders.

Want to know more about Guest Services in ChurchWorld? Give me a shout!

 

 

 

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Categories Guest Services

Serving Your External Customer

March 30, 2012 //
2

People don’t just want to buy personal computers anymore. They want to know what they can do with them, and we’re going to show people exactly that.

- Steve Jobs

The first secret to offering insanely great customer service is to make sure your team is happy, motivated, and passionate. Yesterday’s post took a look at that. But passion and energy take you only so far. Step Two is to master the skills required to make your customers feel special.

In his new book The Apple Experience, Carmine Gallo continues to take readers behind the glass and chrome of Apple Retail Stores to discover just what makes them so successful. He breaks down Apple’s customer-centric model to provide an action plan with three distinct  areas of focus. Yesterday, the topic was the internal customer; today, serving your external customer.

Follow Apple’s Five Steps of Service

Walk into an Apple Retail Store, and you’ll be greeted with warm, friendly, cheery welcome within seconds of stepping inside. It’s the first of five steps employees are instructed to take to create an enriching and memorable experience for all Apple Store customers. The steps are known to employees by the acronym APPLE:

  • Approach customers with a personalized, warm welcome
  • Probe politely to understand all the customer’s needs
  • Present a solution for the customer to take home today
  • Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns
  • End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return

Apple, like other customer service champs (Disney, Ritz-Carlton, Starbucks, Nordstroms, Zappos) are successful because they make customer feel special. They approach with a warm welcome, they ask questions, they listen, they enhance the conversation, and they give you a feeling of empowerment. If you can make your customers feel appreciated, confident, and admired, they’ll reward you with their loyalty.

This section of Gallo’s book is rich with stories, ideas, and techniques your organization can put to use immediately when interacting with customers. Here’s a sample of some of the chapter headings:

  • Reset Your Customer’s Internal Clock
  • Sell the Benefit
  • Unleash Your Customer’s Inner Genius
  • Create WOW Moments
  • Rehearse the Script
  • Deliver a Consistent Experience

Applications for ChurchWorld

Study the five steps of service – review Apple’s five steps of service and evaluate how you can incorporate each step in your organization

Review all of your customer’s touchpoints – are you and your team greeting Guests warmly? Are you making them feel as though they have entered a special environment prepared just for them?

Communicate consistently – digital, print, and spoken communication needs to be consistent – with your vision and your actions

Create culture-focused team descriptions – design a Guest-focused culture starting with your team descriptions

Follow the ten-minute rule – provide a memorable WOW in the first 10 minutes of your Guest coming on campus

Script your story – make sure that every part of your weekend experience has a story that has been scripted so that everything flows together, is repeatable, and memorable

Hold regular meetings to reinforce your vision – providing superior Guest services requires constant reinforcement and modeling

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.

- Steve Jobs

Tomorrow: Setting the Stage

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Categories Guest Services

Inspiring Your Internal Customer

March 29, 2012 //
3

We attract a different type of person, someone who really wants to get in a little over his head and make a dent in the universe.

- Steve Jobs

Apple touches the lives of its customers only after  touching its employees.

If your team members are not trained, personable, and passionate about the brand, you’ll have no chance of building an organization that delivers an Apple quality experience. Unfortunately, many organizations rank low on the customer satisfaction index because their teams are discouraged, disillusioned, and uninspired.

Carmine Gallo, writing in his new book The Apple Experience, pulls the curtain back on the magic show that is the Apple Retail Store experience – and what a show it is! Here are the main points Gallo discovered in part I, the focus on employees, training, and internal communications:

  • Dream Bigger – an innovative customer experience cannot happen in the absence of a loftier goal, an inspiring vision that attracts evangelists and reveals every ounce of your creativity and potential
  • Hire for Smiles – Apple hires for attitude and not aptitude
  • Cultivate Fearless Employees – team members believe in something and they are willing to “fight” for it
  • Build Trust – integrity and trust are a basic threshold requirement to be a part of the team
  • Foster a Feedback Loop – employees feel comfortable and empowered to make comments and suggestions
  • Develop Multitaskers – true multitasking is accommodating three customers and making them all feel special
  • Empower Your Employees – give your team more autonomy, authority, and flexibility when it comes to serving the customer

Applications for ChurchWorld

Know the Why – the vision of your church is the foundation of your team. Make sure it is bold, specific, concise, and consistently communicated.

Design the culture – build a team whose attitudes reflect the culture you’re trying to build.

Listen first – encourage open dialogue with your team to share ideas.

Solicit feedback – everyone on your team must feel comfortable and confident giving and taking feedback.

Learn to multitask – address your guest, assess their needs, and assign a team member to your guest

Foster empowerment - even small measures of empowerment will lead to huge returns when it comes to serving your guests.

People want to be inspired. They want to work toward a higher purpose and to feel good about themselves and the brand they work for.

You can dream, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.

- Walt Disney

Tomorrow: Serve Your External Customer

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Categories Guest Services

The Apple Experience

March 28, 2012 //
1

The most important component to the Apple experience is that the staff isn’t focused on selling stuff. It’s focused on building relationships and trying to make people’s lives better.

- Ron Johnson (Apple’s former head of retail)

When the Apple Store celebrated its 10 year anniversary in May 2011, the media attention was on the growth: one billion visitors, 325 stores, $10 billion in sales, and so on. The numbers were and continue to be astonishing: $6 billion in quarterly revenue, $4,700 in sales per square foot, and 22,000 weekly visitors in a typical store. But numbers alone won’t teach you anything. It’s the story behind the numbers where you’ll learn how to turn your business into an experience so thrilling that your customers will become true advocates for your brand.

The Apple Experience, by Carmine Gallo, tells that story. Gallo, a communications coach, speaker, and journalist, is no stranger to Apple. His book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs is an international bestseller and has changed the way entrepreneurs and business leaders around the world tell their brand story. Following on that success, he wrote another bestseller,The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. The Apple Experience rounds out the trilogy and will help readers understand what it means to deliver an Apple-like experience in any organization who deals with people.

At the core of Apple’s success and intense customer loyalty isn’t just insanely great products but great people who are informed, empowered, and motivated to deliver an unbeatable customer experience. The Apple Experience breaks down Apple’s customer-centric model to provide an action plan with three distinct areas of focus:

  • Inspire Your Inner Customer with training, support, and communications that create a :feedback loop” for improving performance at every level
  • Serve Your External Customer with irresistible brand stores and dedicated salespeople who embody the APPLE five steps of service – Approach, Prove, Present, Listen, End with a fond farewell
  • Set the Stage by ensuring that no element is overlooked in creating an immersive retail environment where customers can see, touch, and learn about your products

Beginning tomorrow, I will take a look at each of these three areas, pull out key learnings, and challenge you as a leader to apply them in your organization.

Tomorrow: Inspiring Your Internal Customer

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Categories Guest Services

Speed Reading Week, Day 4

December 15, 2011 //
0

The Amazement Revolution, Shep Hyken

Customer service isn’t a department – it’s a philosophy that includes every person and aspect of the best and brightest organizations.

Shep Hyken delivers seven powerful strategies that any organization can implement to create greater customer and employee loyalty:

  • Membership: What if you treated the people you serve like members instead of customers?
  • Serious FUN: What if your team felt a sense of fulfillment and enjoyment that made them loyal to you and your customers?
  • Partnership: What if you customers thought of you as a partner rather than just another organization?
  • Hiring: What if you could implement innovative hiring processes to support your customer-service mission?
  • The After-Experience: What if you could create a memorable, positive experience after someone did business with you?
  • Community: What if you could create a community of evangelists – loyal customers who brag about you to their friends and associates?
  • Walking the Walk: What if every person in your company didn’t just deliver, but also lived and breathed your vision for amazing customer service?

Throughout the book, Hyken shares more than one hundred insightful examples from fifty role-model organizations that prove these strategies can and should be implemented immediately – by any organization, large or small.

I first heard Shep Hyken speak on a video talking about an extraordinary cab experience he had on a trip to Dallas. I was hooked – and I think you will be, too.

The Amazement Revolution is not just stories and examples – at the end of the book, Hyken has condensed the seven strategies down into “brainstorm worksheets” that your organization can use to put ideas into action.

How will you amaze your customers today?

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Categories All Because of Books, Book Reviews

Speed Reading Week, Day 3

December 14, 2011 //
0

The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW, by Joseph Michelli

Zappos – the name has come to stand for a new standard of customer experience, and amazing online shopping experience, and the most impressive transformational business success story of our time. Simply put, Zappos is revolutionizing business and changing lives.

 CEO Tony Hsieh documented the Zappos story in his excellent book Delivering Happiness. I encourage you to read it to get Hsieh’s personal insights on the evolution of Zappos.

Michelli’s book The Zappos Experience takes you through – and beyond – the playful, off-beat company culture Zappos has become famous for. Michelli reveals what occurs behind the scenes at Zappos, showing how employees at all levels operate on a day-to-day basis while providing the “big picture” leadership methods.

Michelli breaks the approach down into five key elements:

Serve a Perfect Fit – create bedrock company values

Make it Effortlessly Swift – deliver a customer experience with ease

Step into the Personal – connect with customers authentically

S T R E T C H – grow people and products

Play to Win – play hard, work harder

When you enhance the customer experience, increase employee engagement, and create an energetic culture, you can’t help but succeed. Zappos has woven these five key components into a seamless strategy that’s the envy of business leaders.

The Zappos Experience is much too detailed to adequately treat in this short post.  Applications for ChurchWorld abound. Here’s one example for you to think about:

Zappos’ customer service is legendary for how it handles the huge volume of merchandise shipments. Members of the Customer Loyalty Team take a huge amount of pride in their customer interactions.

Could you apply the same principles in the Guest Services Team at your church?

  • What are the small and epic acts that make up your service story?
  • What do people remember about the way contact with your organization made them feel?
  • What are the stories circulating about your organization’s guest services practices?
  • How are you capturing and retelling large and small WOWS delivered by your team?

It works for Zappos; it can work at your church, too.

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Categories All Because of Books, Book Reviews

A: “We’re Here to Help You Grow”

August 5, 2011 //
0

Q: Why Apple has been able to create one of the most innovative environments – in any industry – ever.

The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs

Principle #6: Create Insanely Great Experiences

People don’t want to just buy personal computers anymore. They want to know what they can do with them, and we’re going to show people exactly that. – Steve Jobs.

Apple entered the retail business out of necessity. Up till 2000, it was dependent on giant electronics retailers that simple pushed products – Apple or otherwise. Apple realized it would continue to lose market share if it didn’t do something.

Steve Jobs’ decision was to enter retail: “We have to think different about this. We have to innovate.”

Along with Jobs, Ron Johnson, Apple’s Senior VP of Retail Operations, realized that innovation could not take place without a clear, compelling vision. That vision?  Enriching lives.

That simple vision drove the Apple team to create a store unlike anything else in retailing. They innovated around the retail experience by changing people’s expectations of what a retail experience could be.

  • Design uncluttered stores
  • Locate the stores where people live their lives
  • Allow customers to test-drive products
  • Offer a concierge experience
  • Make it easy to buy
  • Offer one-to-one training

Where most retailers are moving product, Apple is establishing a lifelong relationship.

Innovation is seeing what exists in another industry and applying what you learn to improve the customer experience.

What are the lessons here for ChurchWorld?

 

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Categories Innovation
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