Three tips for leaving your customers "breathless" By Roy Osing
Satisfying your customers isn’t good enough in today’s
competitive markets. Meeting their needs falls short of earning their loyalty.
You need to dazzle them; leave them “breathless” whenever they touch your
organization.
Here are three steps leaders
can take:
1. Hire human-being
lovers - people who have an
innate desire to serve their fellow human beings.
People who get absolute joy from serving and do whatever it takes to see
someone’s eyes light up.
Customers can’t be delighted if an employee would rather be
taking inventory.
You can’t train people to “love humans.” You can train them to
“grin” with a smile in their voice, but that’s the extent of it.
To select the right candidate, the recruitment interview should
always start with the question “Do you love humans?” If you get goose bumps
from the answer, hire the person. If not, show them the door.
2. Trash "dumb
rules" – policies and procedures that infuriate customers and
drive them kicking and screaming to other organizations.
Rules have a legitimate management control purpose but if they
drive business away because customers are unwilling to play by them, what’s the
point?
Have fun with the idea. I struck a number of “dumb rules
committees” to seek out and destroy senselessness; I made it matter by holding
my leadership team accountable for implementing the changes.
Rules that serve the customer requires their engagement. Ask
them for their input in rule design; they will be impressed that you are open
to asking for their help.
Empower your front line to bend rules in special circumstances
when they don’t make sense to a particular customer and their loyalty is in
jeopardy. Not every policy will be acceptable to every customer, so allowing
some flexibility is required. Don’t worry, your employees won’t give away the
farm. Provide them with the skills to balance the needs of both the company and
the customer.
3. Turn OOPS! into WOW! Sure you do your best
to avoid making mistakes, but they will happen. That’s life in any
organization.
The good news is that if your service recovery is remarkable
when you disappoint one of your customers they are more loyal than if the
mistake never happened. So how to recover?
Fix the mistake fast and then blow the customer away by
surprising them with something they don’t expect.
Surprise
is magic. People expect the screw-up to be remedied but they don’t expect
the extra personal attention you give them to atone for the mistake.
Speed is critical. A recovery succeeds only if it is delivered
within 24 hours of the oops. After that, save your energy for the next one
coming your way. Leaving people breathless is not rocket science; it’s about
delivering basic human needs. We want to feel special, treated as individuals
and delighted by surprise.
Stand-out leaders understand this and create organizations to
deliver.
"Roy Osing (@royosing) is a former President and CMO with over 33 years of leadership experience covering all the major business functions including business strategy, marketing, sales, customer service and people development. He is a blogger, content marketer, educator, coach, adviser and the author of the book series Be Different or Be Dead. "
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