7 Secret Customer Service Techniques

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Copyright Notice
Copyright 2012 IntenseFence Management Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without prior written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for such permission, with a statement of the purpose and extent of the reproduction, should be addressed to IntenseFence Management Solutions, LLC in writing at [email protected].

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While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written or digitally produced sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

7 Secret Customer Service Techniques Every Expert Knows 1st Edition | September 24, 2012

What’s Inside...
Introduction ...................................................................................... #1: They Know Consistency is the Greatest Wow of All .............................. #2: They Believe in Invisible Systems ..................................................... #3: They Hire for Personality Over Skill .................................................. #4: They Prepare for What Will Go Wrong ............................................... #5: They Prevent Problem Customers From Hogging Resources .................... #6: They Understand the Power of Brand Deposits .................................... #7: They Value Relationships Over Transactions ....................................... How to Implement the Secrets Techniques in Your Business ....................... Thank You! ...................................................................................... About the Author ............................................................................... Photo Credits .................................................................................... Citations ..........................................................................................

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Introduction
What is the biggest hurdle to achieving hero-class customer service? For most, it is knowing where to start. We all know what great service is in the abstract. We know it when we see it; we know it when we receive it. What we do not always know is how the company made it happen. Sure, the world is full of customer service platitudes that are supposed to help: Customer service is not a department, it’s an attitude Empowered employees are engaged employees If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will …and the list goes on. But bumper sticker-style slogans do not help us take our organizations from average to excellent. Techniques do. That is why I wrote 7 Secret Customer Service Techniques Every Expert Knows.

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What Are The Secret Techniques?
Want to know a secret? The secret techniques are not really secret. While some specific details in this book are not well known, every customer service expert I am familiar with knows the 7 concepts that form the chapters in this book. In fact, not only do the experts know these techniques, they have been sharing them in books, speeches, and blogs for years. So, why do I call them secret techniques? Because I am a customer. And every day as I transact business in the world, I see that the great majority of these techniques are not being practiced by the great majority of businesses. As you read through the secret techniques in this book, you will realize that they must be the most closely guarded secrets since the alien landings at Roswell. Otherwise, why are so few businesses using these techniques to improve their customer experiences? Is it apathy? Is it malice? Or is it just a matter of getting the correct information in the right hands? In 7 Secret Customer Service Techniques, we will not only reveal techniques that can radically transform your customer experience and customer service, but we will also show you why these techniques are so powerful.

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Who Can Benefit from This Book?
Business Owners
As someone who as owned as many as 5 small businesses at one time, I bring the perspective of life “behind the spear” to this book. The secret techniques in this book work in the real world of business ownership, a world in which limited resources, increasing expenses, and high competition are not just stories from the news. In this world, we realize that companies like Apple and the Ritz Carlton (both of whom are mentioned in this book) have a lot to teach us, but they also have numerous advantages we do not have. Our suburban ice cream shops or regional parts distributorships do not have the brand cachet and economies of scale, among other things, that these large companies possess. We need advice that works in the trenches on Main Street. This book has it.

Managers
I refer to organizations or businesses a lot in this book, but almost every piece of advice will pertain to departments or divisions. While office politics, organizational bureaucracy, fixed budgets and corporate policies will add unique variables to implementation, the majority of techniques will be effective in departments or divisions of larger companies.

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Employees
While this book is written for leaders in charge of implementing change, it contains incredible value for employees and, in particular, customer facing professionals. Want to make change in your company? Want to stand out as exceptional? Be the person who brings one great idea from this book back to your boss. Plus, if you are reading this book, my guess is that you are going to be an owner or manager one day anyway!

How To Use This Book
1. Read It From Cover to Cover
This book is designed to be quickly digested and can easily be read in about an hour or so. I recommend reading about all 7 of the techniques before attempting to implement any one of them. That way, you can evaluate where your organization stands and what techniques will most radically transform your delivery of service. This book is meant to provide a 50,000 foot view of key customer service techniques with a few brief dips into the lower altitudes of execution. Make sure to look at the big picture before diving into the nitty gritty.

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2. Get Buy-In From Your Team
This book is free for you to share (not to copy and publish, that’s a different matter). Share it with your team members and get buy-in for the change process. What techniques do they feel would most impact your organization? Have an open discussion about the different techniques. Once you have talked through the techniques, pick one to focus on. Don’t try to eat the whole elephant in one meal.

3. Work Through the Final Chapter
In the final chapter, How to Implement The Secret Techniques In Your Organization, we give you a step-by-step process for how to choose the techniques that can make the most difference for your organization in the shortest amount of time. I hope you enjoy 7 Secret Customer Service Techniques Every Expert Knows! Please feel free to contact me and share your thoughts or questions. You will find my contact information at the end of the book. Yours in service, Adam Toporek Customers That Stick

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Buzzwords and catchphrases are everywhere in the customer service field. We want our service to be Above and Beyond We want to Amaze and Delight our customers We want to create WOW moments ... and each one of those concepts is important! Every time we can exceed expectations, every time we can WOW our customer, we differentiate ourselves from the competition and make strides towards earning a lifetime customer. But here’s the catch: WOW’s come in many different stripes.

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Here are some WOW’s that you might not want to hear... WOW, that was a lot different than the last time we ate here. WOW, I usually have great service here, I wonder what happened. WOW, every time I place an order with them, it’s like a game of Russian Roulette You see, the only thing worse than an average customer experience is an inconsistent customer experience.

Why Consistency is Important
Whether you provide a service or a product, your customers need to know that they will receive the benefits they expect from the experience. Your customers have a baseline of expectations that must be satisfied by each and every interaction with your company. Failure to consistently achieve these baseline expectations can undermine every program you have in place to delight and amaze your customers. Consistency from our organizations creates predictability for customers. We need to get the basics right time after time.

In any team sport, the best teams have consistency and chemistry.
Roger Staubach

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“The executives we spoke with at companies that have achieved sustainable strategic service believe that instead of trying to generate individual “wow!” experiences for thousands of customers, the better approach is to consistently meet their customers’ high expectations.” From The Empathy Engine (pdf -pg. 11)

Consistency Breeds Trust
Consistency is not only an important part of meeting expectations, it is an important part of establishing trust. Of course, we all know this innately from our personal lives. In general, whom do you trust more -- the steady friend who is consistently reliable and dependable or the erratic friend who is great fun but also highly unpredictable? Which friend would you leave your baby with in an emergency?

Consistency Creates Predictability; Predictability Creates Trust
Fascinating research reported in The Importance of Consistency in Establishing Cognitive-based Trust: A Laboratory Experiment shows us how important consistency is in creating trust in a business setting. (Emphases mine.) “The literature (Lewis and Weigert, 1985; Ring, 1996) has identified two aspects to trust: a cognitive element in which trust is the result of a rational calculation by the trustor about how the trustee will behave in the future, and an emotional element in which trust is the product of a strong positive affection between the two individuals. Most social relations, including economic ones, are based on cognitive trust…” “This study focuses on three cognitive-based cues … the frequency with which the trustee and trustor interact, the competence of the trustee, and the consistency of the trustee’s previous behavior.”

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“The results reveal that the consistency of the trustee’s previous behavior is the most important element in engendering cognitive-based trust…” When it comes to relationships with your customers, the consistency of your company’s previous behavior is the most important aspect in whether customers trust you or not. And that trust is crucial to developing relationships with your customers. Put simply, people do not do business, particularly repeat business, with companies they do not trust. So, if creating consistency is a top organizational imperative, where do we start?

Three Aspects of Creating Consistency: Expectations, Systems, and Training
When we talk about great customer service, we usually do not speak of fast food restaurants. Yet, some fast food chains have been incredibly successful providing customers what they want in the fast food environment and providing it consistently. What do those customers want? Decent food, hot and quick. Expectations The first step in delivering consistent service is understanding what your customers expect from their interactions with your organization. When people go to McDonald’s, they do not expect a 5-Star meal, but they do expect their food hot and fast in a clean environment. While the quality of the product is determined earlier in the supply chain, at the store level the mission is to deliver to the expectations of the customer. McDonald’s, does so using its legendary QSCV concept — Quality, Service, Cleanliness, and Value.

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Systems Once you know what your customers expect — your brand promise — consistent execution begins with having systems in place to support that basic delivery of service. How does McDonald’s serve millions of meals a day, hot and fast, across languages and cultures? Systems. McDonald’s has systems to deliver their basic product consistently and as expected. Training Systems are a beginning, but they are only as good as the people executing them. Are cold fries and inaccurate orders served every day at McDonald’s? Sure. Are there poorly run franchise locations that do not live up to McDonald’s standards? Of course. Once you have the systems in place, your team must be trained to make the system work and to work the system. Team members must understand the importance of consistent execution. Consistency is the base for everything else we do in customer service. Start by establishing the service levels that must always be achieved. What are the deliverables that customers can expect every time they interact with your business? For instance... The phone is always answered in three rings The meal is always served in 15 minutes The customer is always greeted by their first name

Systems Depend on People
The best systems in the world will not survive poor execution. Once you’ve taken time to analyze your systems for effectiveness, you need to take a look at each person on your team to make sure that they have the attitude, aptitude and ability to execute those systems.

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Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde

Consistency is the first secret technique because it is not flashy. No one gets inspired talking about consistency; yet it is one of the most important and fundamental aspects of great service. Oscar Wilde might have disdained consistency, but he never ran a retail store or a fulfillment department.

Consistency is the first step in competitive advantage and is the base upon which all of the other secret customer service techniques rest. Once you and your team have embraced the idea of consistency, then you are ready to take a look at systems with...

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How did they have our favorite wine at the table when we sat down? How did they know it was our anniversary? How did they remember to put a humidifier in the room? Moments like these are almost always the result of invisible systems.

What is an Invisible System?
Customer service expert John DiJulius is perhaps the world’s leading authority on invisible systems. In fact, he has an entire book related to this concept called Secret Service. In the beginning of the book, John explains what secret service is and how invisible or hidden systems play a part in creating a stellar customer experience. “Secret Service is the implementation of hidden systems that enable our staff consistently to exceed the clients expectations and to make the client feel welcome, comfortable, important, and understood. The systems help companies create a solidly loyal customer

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base by implementing simple ideas that provide customer service that will be remembered. By managing the systems, companies turn most customer encounters into a surprisingly pleasant experience for the customer. The result is that repeat business is insured, more dollars are spent, and many referrals are gained.” Invisible systems make personalized moments (like having wine chilled at your table when you arrive) possible. Invisible systems help operations run smoothly and facilitate personalization and WOW moments like we received on a vacation a few years back. An invisible system creates experiences for customers without the customer seeing the processes that led to the experience.

Getting WOWed by The Hotel Indigo in Asheville, NC
In the blog post Surprise! A Lesson In Superior Customer Service, I told the story of how the Hotel Indigo pulled off a surprise WOW for my wife on her birthday.

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We had mentioned my wife’s birthday when booking the reservation over a month before. We had not asked for anything special, other than a room with a view, and did not really make a big deal about the birthday at all. We mentioned it, and that was about it. When we arrived in our room, we were greeted by this picture: My wife was blown away by the gesture, and it provided and incredible start to a wonderful weekend! (For the full version of the story, click here.) How did the Hotel Indigo manage to create such a timely and perfect impression? Systems. The hotel staff obviously had the capability to note the birthday during the reservation process and had systems in place to make sure that information was reviewed prior to our arrival at the hotel.

Getting Started with Invisible Systems
Since this book is about creating simple, actionable wins to transform your organization’s customer service, you can think of this chapter as the quick-and-dirty guide to adding invisible systems to your current operations.

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You can create effective invisible systems in your organization by focusing on two important concepts: 1. Decide What You Want Your Customers to Experience Create simple wins for your business that you would like to deliver to your customers. For instance, the Hotel Indigo team might have said that they wanted a way to track their guest’s special occasions so that they could provide surprises that make those special days even more special. What would you like to do in your business? Do you want to know a customer’s order history the minute they call so that you can refer back to every transaction and customize your responses? Do you want your staff to greet your customers by their first name the minute they walk in the door? Do you have a certain type of customer, such as VIPs, that you want to treat differently? Begin with determining your dream WOW’s, then… 2. Analyze Your Current Systems and Technological Capabilities Understanding your current systems is the first step to developing hidden systems that complement them. As mentioned, we are not discussing a wholesale system redesign in this book but instead finding ways to enhance the customer experience through quick tweaks to your existing processes. In analyzing your system, ask the following questions: What capabilities does your system have that you are not using? If you are using a digital customer relationship management (CRM) system, there might be a number of features you are not currently using, for instance, tracking customer birthdays or high frequency buyers.

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Do side systems1 already exist that you are not using? Perhaps you use a digital CRM but have the ability to create a side system by color coding your customer’s paper files. Are there side systems that you can purchase that will complement your current systems? If your current system leaves a lot to be desired, it’s possible that one of the many online, inexpensive CRM systems can be of use as a side system to work invisible customer magic. Once you have analyzed what you want your customers to experience and the capabilities available to you, the next step is simple (though not always easy): figure out how to use your current capabilities to deliver those experiences to your customers. Once you have figured out how to create invisible systems to knock your customers socks off, then you just need to remember…

Systems are Only as Good as the People Who Use Them
If we look back at the Hotel Indigo story, the hotel had the systems in place to record the information about my wife’s birthday, but without training it would have never happened. The person taking the reservation had to be aware enough to note that it was my wife’s birthday and then someone in reception had to be focused enough to review that information prior to our arrival. A great story from the Divine Caroline website about Zappo’s shows how systems and people combine to create magic for customers: A customer’s mother had medical treatments that left her feet sore and her current shoes useless. The daughter purchased six pairs of shoes for her mother. Her mother then called Zappo’s to find out how to return the shoes that

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A side system is any system outside our your primary customer relationship management system.

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had not worked. In the midst of that call, the mother struck up a conversation with the Zappo’s rep and relayed the story of her medical condition. The conversation struck a chord with the Zappo’s employee. Two days later the mother received a bouquet of flowers and a get well soon card from Zappo’s. Needless to say, the gesture made an impression on the entire family (who, by the way, were later upgraded to Zappo’s VIP Members). Of course, this is not just a case of a superb Zappo’s employee going above and beyond. Stories like this from Zappo’s are commonplace because Zappo’s has the systems in place that allow front line associates to not only make decisions like this for customers but also to execute them. In some companies, an enterprising employee who wanted to make this kind of customer service gesture would have to fill out a requisition form that needed to be approved by three different departments. At Zappo’s, the systems are in place to make it happen. Customer service experts know that invisible systems are a secret weapon to amaze and delight customers. No matter what the current state of your organization is, focusing on creating invisible systems that deliver value consistently and WOW moments regularly is an investment that pays substantial dividends. Begin with the customer, figure out the systems, and then hire and train the right people to implement them. Because even the best system needs good people, as do the best organizations. And it is this belief that leads us to Secret Technique #3…

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Think back on your work history. When was the last time someone took a low-energy, unhappy subordinate or coworker and changed them into an energetic, joyous employee. It’s never happened, right? I’m not talking about shaking someone out of a funk or lifting them out of a bad day. I’m talking about trying to motivate the apathetic and trying to energize the zombified. Some people are just not built for customer facing jobs.

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Customer service experts know to hire for personality first, skills second, because skills can be taught, but personality cannot be changed. 2

Hire the Smile, Train The Skills
The advice seems obvious as you read it, yet, it is so rarely put into practice. The first thing most companies see in an applicant is a résumé, a listing of skills gained from experience.

Lessons from the Apple Store
Apple’s retail stores are known for their excellent customer service and for creating a culture that begins with hiring. Admittedly, most businesses do not have the semi-cultish attraction that Apple does, and thus, do not have the same breadth of labor pool from which to draw. Nonetheless, valuable lessons can be learned from Apples’a approach to people — particularly their focus on personality over accomplishment. On the 10th anniversary of Apple’s stores, the company released a large poster filled with small text called “We’ve Learned A Lot.” A few excerpts from the poster reveal Apple’s philosophies on its people. And at the very center of all we've accomplished, all we've learned over the past 10 years, are our people. People who understand how important art is to technology. People who match, and often exceed, the excitement of our customers on days we release new products. We now see that it's our job to train our people and then learn from them.

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Of course, with the proper motivation, people can and do change their personality. However, external job motivation is rarely the spark that lights that fire.

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And we recruit employees with such different backgrounds--teachers, musicians, artists, engineers--that there's a lot they can teach us. We've learned how to value a magnetic personality just as much as proficiency. How to look for intelligence but give just as much weight to kindness. How to find people who want a career, not a job. And we've found that when we hire the right people, we can lead rather than manage. Why have we learned to be so selective? So careful? Because our people are the soul of the Apple Stores. And together, our team is the strongest ever seen in retail. As beautiful and iconic as our stores may be, the people who create and staff those stores are what matters most.

Not Everyone Needs People Skills
Yahoo’s education portal recently made a list of Six Careers for People Who Don’t Like People. 1. Accountant 2. Technical Writer 3. Graphic Designer 4. Software Developer 5. Medical Laboratory Technician 6. Information Security Analyst So, if you are hiring for one of these positions, you can probably put skills before attitude. However, beware. We live in a connected world — everyone has to deal with someone, and people skills will always matter.

Apple understands that it has the product, systems and training to turn the right people into great representatives for the company. Apple knows that the person’s underlying personality will be a better determinant of the ability to work the “Genius” bar than any other factor. While your business or department might not have a line of applicants out the door like a typical Apple store, if you believe in providing hero-class customer service, embracing Apple’s focus on hiring for attitude as well as aptitude can make a significant difference.

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A Look at the Alternatives
Who would you rather have try to work with your upset customer?
An unexperienced associate with a positive attitude who enjoys problem solving. A person who takes criticism personally but has worked in customer service for 10 years.

Who would you rather have handle your most difficult client?
Someone who is patient and able to see the long term value of the client. Someone who has experience with a similar large account but thinks the client’s requests are “ridiculous.”

Who would you rather have talking to fellow employees at the water cooler?

Someone who talks about their exciting plans for the weekend.

Someone who has a new tale of woe everyday.

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Of course, the dream candidate possesses a surfeit of personality and applicable skills. Another way to look at it is…

For anyone interacting directly with customers, people skills are a job skill!

Three Tips to Help You Hire the Right Personalities
Hiring is one of the most complicated and difficult endeavors in business. So many facets go into finding and developing a successful employee, and the great majority of these are notoriously difficult to suss out in the interview process. Here are three tips to help improve your batting average in hiring: Multiple Interviews When looking to glean a sense of a person’s true personality, one of the most important techniques is making sure that you interact with the person on different occasions and, if possible, in different settings. You will be amazed at how differently people can behave in interviews that are only a day or two apart. For some positions in my retail business, I am involved in the 3rd and final interview. Some of these interviews have been absolute train wrecks. When the interviews have ended, I have naturally asked the managers what they saw in the person in the first two interviews. The answer is usually “I don’t know who that was. That was not the person I met with last Tuesday.” One of the reasons this difference is evident is because multiple interviews gives you a chance to see people in different moods and often with their guards down.

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Multiple Interviewers Call it group dynamics; call it personality meshing — whatever you call it, people react differently to different people. When using multiple interviews, make sure to vary who is involved in the interview process. First, this approach helps with time management for senior leaders, who should usually be brought in for the final interview. Second, varying who is asking the questions and who is observing the interaction gives different perspectives on the interview. An important aspect of using multiple interviewers is that there should be one interviewer who is present for all of the interviews (usually the person who will be the applicant’s direct report). This person needs to be able to see the different ways the applicant has behaved across the multiple encounters. This is often (but not always) the person who will have the best read on the applicant when making the final decision. Role Playing Description is not the same as action. Hearing you tell me how you will do something is not the same as seeing you actually do it. Role playing is not perfect, and it is certainly not reality. However, it is a lot closer to reality than asking what someone would do in a certain situation. Sprinkle various role playing questions into the different interview stages. You will have the chance to observe your applicant’s skill set in a way that description will just not accomplish. If time permits, repeat one of the role play exercises. This will show you not only if the applicant has consistency but also if the applicant gave any thought to the original interview after it was over.

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There are so many techniques to help better identify potential candidates — including selective peer-involvement in the hiring process and repetitive questioning across interviews, that it is easy to get mired down. Start simply, and begin with the three techniques above. Implement them now; they can can make a HUGE difference. Are multiple interviews and interviewers time consuming and expensive? Absolutely. But it is a pittance compared to the cost of training employees who rapidly turnover. If you can cut your turnover rate in half by implementing these techniques what would that be worth? Of course, you don’t have to do it alone. Numerous companies provide employment testing services and some of these companies have fairly strong records. Whether those companies are a good fit for your business and are able to predict the personality traits you need to deliver hero-class service, only you can decide. For now, try the three steps above and help align the mindset of everyone involved in HR in your organization to look past the résumé and find the person beneath the interview mask. If you hire the smile, creating a culture of great service can be easier than you think, and a culture like that is what you will need when you try to tackle Chapter 4…

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Let’s say it loud.

You will drop the ball.
There, we said it. Doesn’t it feel good to get that off our chests. I was speaking with a small business owner once and mentioned that “We can talk systems all day, but you are going to drop the ball once in awhile. If you can anticipate it, you can turn it into a win.” The owner visibly reacted to this comment, seeming to recoil from the admission that they are going to stumble occasionally with a customer. “I would rather focus on doing it right in the first place,” he said. What he was really saying is “I don’t believe in planning for failure. I believe in not failing.” Let me say it here and now, that is failure!

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If you ask any business owner or department manager, are you perfect? Is your team perfect? Is your organization perfect? They will give the obvious answer: NO. Yet, they will manage their customer service programs as if they are going to execute flawlessly in each encounter. It isn’t going to happen. The secret every customer service professional knows is to plan in advance for what will go wrong. How do you do this? Employ the Pareto Principle (see sidebar). The Pareto Principle tells us that the majority of our customer service issues likely come from a small minority of problems. Can you name the three to five problems that create the majority of customer service issues in your organization? Of course you can. The Pareto Principle The Pareto Principle is also widely known as the 80/20 rule. Named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, this rule of estimates that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.⁠ In 1906, Pareto observed that 20% of Italy’s population owned 80% of the country’s wealth.⁠ The principle can be applied to many fields and does not always conform to a perfect 80/20 split. The Pareto principle can also represent ratios such as 90/10 or 95/5; however, the key principle remains the same — that a minority of inputs results in a majority of outcomes.

But here’s where the magic happens. What if you could prepare for 80-90% of your customer challenges by focusing on that small set of problems? What if your team was thoroughly trained to expect and react to these challenges in an optimal way when they occurred. You just trained your team to handle 80% or more of your challenges by focusing on a few pivotal issues.

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How to Identify Problems That Give Results
Identifying the common problems that create the most customer service issues usually calls for a blend of data and opinion. The larger the organization, presumably, the more sophisticated your customer relationship management system and your ability to analyze your customer data to identify the most common challenges. Since the qualitative details that one needs to create a proper training program might not be captured well in the data, the analysis will need to incorporate a variety of cross-departmental views to understand not just what the challenges are but their root causes. For small business or smaller departments, the answer is as simple as an employee survey and/or meeting. Ask your team what are the top 3 customer issues they have to handle in a month. Don’t use a week or a day, people will tend to give you whatever happened to them last. You will need to dig in to the results to make sure that the challenges that have the most impact on your team personally are the same issues that have the most impact on your organization.

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Don’t Try to Solve Every Problem You’ve Ever Had
In fact, nothing can shackle an organization like creating policies that attempt to prevent recurrence of every single problem that has ever occurred. The tendency in organizations is to create a rule every time something goes wrong. When something happens that creates a poor customer experience, people immediately begin to ask “how can we prevent this in the future?” It doesn’t matter that the only reason this exceptional issue happened was because of some rare circumstance; the tendency is to create a policy to keep it from happening again. I call this Rule Accretion.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
Oscar Wilde

Rule Accretion: Rule accretion occurs when a rule is devised to fix problems in an organization - no matter the qualitative impact or relative frequency of the problems. The problem with Rule Accretion is that the policies that result usually shackle employees so much that they often create more problems than the obscure circumstances they are designed to prevent. This is not to say that creating policies for an unlikely circumstance is never called for. If the issue is one of liability or safety, than the policy might be called for even if the circumstances are rare. It is a question then of balancing risk and reward. However, the tendency to overreact and create a rule for every problem should be guarded against; otherwise, you end up with bloated policies that become organizational shackles. Preparing for what will go wrong is about making choices and focusing on the few efforts that create the greatest results. The first step is admitting that things will go wrong and that our organizations will drop the ball on occasion. The next step is figuring out how we can prepare for these eventualities. If we handle them with speed and grace, we create big WINS for the customers who are looking for help. Now, let’s use the Pareto principle to help us with Vampire customers in...

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Vampire customers exist in every organization. Vampire customers are the customers that suck the life out of your organization — they are excessively needy, excessively demanding, and often excessively unpleasant. If your organization is like most others, than I’m willing to bet that a small handful of “problem” customers are responsible for most of your challenges (the Pareto principle in action again). What is most damaging about these Vampire customers is not only are they often unprofitable to deal with, not only do they take an immense psychological toll on your team, but they also hog organizational resources and lessen the quality of service you deliver to your best customers. Before identifying your problem customers, you first need to know how big a challenge they pose.

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Where Does Your Organization Spend Its Time?
In a July 2012 blog post entitled How to Make the Three States of Customer Service Work For You, I discussed that each organization is in one of three states relative to a customer: inactive, proactive, or reactive. Are these categories broad? Sure. Yet, it is this 50,000 foot view that can illuminate the need for improvement in a way that a granular analysis cannot. We need only ask ourselves two simple questions: 1. 2. Where does our organization spend most of its time? Where should our organization spend most of its time?

Pick a one week period to evaluate and see how close your answers are to those two questions. If your organization is like most, you will find that it spends most of its time in reactive mode, putting out fires and dealing with ringing phones. In fact, for many businesses, one of the most telling metrics in this area for most businesses is the number of inbound calls versus the number of outbound calls. The exercise is almost always illuminating. Once you see how much time is spent in reactive mode, try to take a stab at the ultimate mix for your business. Then, map out a strategy to move in that direction. The next step is to determine how much time you spend in reactive mode dealing with customer issues and how much of your reactive time is due to a small minority of Vampire customers.

I love mankind, it s people I can t stand.
Charles M. Schulz

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Once you have identified the customers that are draining resources and affecting your delivery of service to the rest of your customer, you need look at each case and to ask two fundamental questions: 1. Is this customer such a drain on resources that you would rather not have their business than continue the relationship in its current form? If the answer is yes, then this customer is part of the Pareto minority creating the majority of problems. 2. Why is this relationship a challenge? It is important to know how much of the problem stems from the organization and how much the customer. Of course, the analysis is usually much more nuanced than such an either/or proposition. Confluences of events, bad personality matches and other mitigating factors can all dramatically be at the heart of customer challenges and are rarely the failure of any one party.

Should They Stay or Should They Go?
The point of this analysis is not to assign blame; it is to understand the nature of the problem so that you can understand what, if any, resolution is possible. Once you’ve determined which relationships are essentially a net negative for your organization, you have three basic choices:

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1. Help Guide Them to a Happier Path Your customer is stuck on a road of bad experiences, combative interactions, and habitual frustration; if the customer has the potential to be a truly happy customer, you might need to go the extra mile (which you should be doing anyways) to break the cycle they are in. 2. Try a Little Tough Love I remember reading a piece about movie stars once. The author posited that there was no universal rule and that some actors maintained power in Hollywood by saying no, others by saying yes, and others by saying maybe. Similarly, some of our customers have learned that being courteous and nice is the way to get what they want. Others have learned that being rude or bullying is the best way. The latter customers will often test you until you finally step in and put a stop to it. These relationships can be fruitful but often it takes drawing clear lines and setting firm expectations to keep the relationship from devolving into something unproductive.

FROM THE TRENCHES When I first opened one of my retail businesses, I had a couple who patronized the business regularly. Within the first few weeks, the complaints started. On the first instance, I comped them for the bad experience. In the second instance, after doing my best to salvage the situation, I ended up comping them again. After the second experience, it was obvious that they were taking advantage. The problems were minor ones (if true at all). The business was brand new, and they could smell the uncertainty that accompanies fear of bad word of mouth for a new enterprise. The third “problem” was not long in coming. Nothing I did would resolve the issue for them, and it was obvious, they were going to keep pushing until they got something. I finally told them that I had done all I was willing to do in the situation. If they wished to continue doing business with us we would love to have them, but that I would be happy to move on if they did not feel we were able to provide the experience they were looking for. Once I drew the line in the sand, the tone changed, and we kept them as customers. They still required more attention than most, but they were no longer a major drain on resources. My staff received a few complaints over the years from these customers, but nothing that ever was elevated to my desk again.

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3. Say Goodbye As you can see from the story above I was prepared to fire the customer. Firing a customer is never easy; in fact, sometimes you even have to fire your good customers. The key to firing customers is to make it about your inability to serve them in a way that will make them happy. Approach the discussion from the perspective of how your business is just not setup to provide the service they are looking for, give reasons why this is true when possible, and emphasize that you only want to keep them as a customer if you can deliver an excellent customer experience consistently for them. Some will not respond to this — they will kick and scream until they get what they want. In these cases, just end the relationship and move on. Your team and your other customers will be better for it.

Ridding your organization of Vampire customers is not a process with a defined end. In fact, you can never completely eliminate this dynamic from your customer service. To begin, you will always have other considerations. How big is this account? How important is this person in our industry? When you cannot eliminate these customers, you are left to do your best to mitigate their impact on your operational effectiveness. Additionally, there will always be a small group of customers that take more resources than many multiples of their number combined. What you can do is work on this group so that they do not paralyze your organization from delivering hero-class service. How do you know when you are succeeding?

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When your organization feels like a proactive business instead of a reactive one. When your organization actively fills the customers experience “accounts”of their best customers because it is no longer focused on the many problems of the few. And it is this idea that leads us to secret technique #6 and the concept of brand deposits...

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If you viewed the interactions your customers have with your company as deposits and withdrawals, what do you think your customer’s “balance” would be? Customer service experts understand the importance of brand deposits, often referred to as brand equity. The term brand deposits was coined by Steve Jobs. Here is an explanation from the book Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success. “He [Jobs] believed that a company’s brand works like a bank account. When the company does good things, such as launch a hit product or a great campaign, it makes deposits in the brand bank. When a company experiences setbacks, like an embarrassing

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mouse or an overpriced computer, it’s making a withdrawal. When there’s a healthy balance in the brand bank, customers are more willing to ride out the tough times. With a low balance, they might be more tempted to cut and run.” Cult of Mac The following story, originally published in my August 2012 blog post, Are You Making Brand Deposits? gives a good sense of how brand deposits work in the real world:

A Clean, Well-Amplified Place
Last Sunday, my wife and I planned a working Starbucks excursion. We were behind on some key projects and wanted to get out of the house and focus on a few important items that had been getting pushed down the To Do list. We figured a nice, quiet coffee shop would do the trick. We know the various Starbucks locations in our area well, and the store we went to that day is probably the least well managed of the group. And it was at that store where we had an experience that demonstrates the importance of brand deposits. The experience began well -- we were able to find a table near a power outlet (always a hot commodity at any Starbucks) -- but then the experience quickly went downhill from there. The table was sticky and unclean The Barista working the register was seemingly indifferent to my wife and the other patrons in line And to top it all off, the music was blaring! And, I mean AC/DC blaring The music was loud enough that I got up and walked around the store to see if there was another table more strategically placed. There was not.

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I have experienced loud music at Starbucks before, but never like this. My wife and I couldn’t even have a conversation. Eventually, I nicely asked the Barista if she could turn down the music, telling her that we could hardly hear each other. Its hard to describe the tone of adolescent condescension with which the Barista replied, “when I can,” but it was pretty obnoxious. The short end to the story: After 15 more minutes or so of unchanged volume, we left. The community coffee shop experience that Starbucks tries so hard to create was ruined that day by a poor employee. As Starbucks experiences go, it was a pretty bad one.

How Brand Deposits are Like Customer Insurance

Here’s the beauty of brand deposits. Despite that experience, the very next day I was sitting at my desk drinking my morning Starbucks. After over a decade of patronizing Starbucks, the company has built up a lot of brand deposits with me. I have received great service and great products from Starbucks, and I have used their locations as culturally acceptable locations for business meetings. I have even written quite a few blog posts at those rounded, wooden tables. That is the essence of customer loyalty. Sure, I’ve had bad experiences. I’ve tasted my coffee after driving away, and it was wrong. I’ve had a new Barista so logjam the morning rush that I’ve been late to a meeting because of it. And I’ve had the staff talking very loudly with each other while I tried to enjoy a quiet coffee. However, over the years Starbucks has delivered great value, both in product and services. They have made brand deposits day after day, from the smiling, friendly Baristas to the clean, well-lit (and usually quiet) environment.

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Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.
Gary Ryan Blair

Of course, I’ve probably been to hundreds of Starbucks locations, and my transactions, without question, number in the thousands. The brand deposits created by Starbucks in those encounters are money in the bank for Starbucks, both literally and figuratively. The brand deposits Starbucks has built up along the way by giving great experiences had accrued a positive balance in the metaphorical account. When the bad experience made a withdrawal, there were still plenty of funds left over, and I was drinking a Starbucks drink the very next day. That is the power of brand deposits.

Do You Start Off with Savings or with Debt?
Let’s take the “account” metaphor out for a spin. What if my experience on Sunday had been my first experience at Starbucks? What if the alternative music concert and the snarky seventeen year old had been my introduction to the Starbucks brand? It would have been quite awhile before I ever walked into another one, and I probably would have only given them a second chance because they are everywhere. If that had been my introduction to a local business, I doubt I would have ever gone back. If we look at the proverbial customer experience account, you will immediately see the importance of first impressions and first experiences being positive ones. Every new customer arrives at your business with a neutral

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account. They might have expectations, they might even have second hand experiences, but they have yet to personally engage with your organization. That first experience will determine whether the customer’s account has a positive or negative balance out of the gate. When the first experience is not positive, then the customer begins the relationship with a negative balance and views your organization in a negative way. When I train team members, I refer to this as “starting out in the hole.” If you begin in the hole, then most of your effort goes towards climbing out of the hole. In the framework of customer deposits, your energy goes to getting back to neutral instead of to building up a positive balance. The good news for customer facing professionals everywhere is that the situation can and should be reversed. If you are able to ensure a great first experience, if you are able to begin the relationship with a positive balance, then the true power of brand deposits can work for you.

When the Speaker Has to Scream
A recent experience of mine with a local hotel demonstrates the power of brand deposits. A retail business of mine was asked to host a statewide conference here in the Orlando area this past summer. Colleagues were driving from up to four hours away to attend the meeting, so it was important that the event went off without a hitch. The hotel that provided the meeting room was amazing from the first contact. Hotel Z, we will call them, delivered incredible service at every stage of the process. They were extremely helpful and accommodating throughout the

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process, working with us as we shifted our food and audio/visual needs. Hotel Z over-communicated, making sure they answered every question and that all of the details were correct before we signed the contracts. After the contracts were signed and we had committed to the room, Hotel Z did not let up one bit. Their audio/ visual and catering staff were extra accommodating. As we approached the meeting date and questions arose, Hotel Z was lightning fast with their responses. Hotel Z provided a great meeting experience that proceed without a hitch throughout the entire morning. Then came the afternoon. The conference rooms were separated by your typical accordion-style dividers, which are not the most soundproof of wall partitions. Unfortunately, that afternoon, another group had taken the conference room next to ours. It was a group doing activities with young children — with continuous cheering and screaming that interrupted our speaker. The hotel did what they could to mitigate the issue, but due to special circumstances, asking the other group to be quiet was not an option. Our hotel contact was as apologetic as she could be. They had clearly made a mistake putting the loud children’s group in the room next to a business conference. While we were not happy about how the day ended, we were not angry either. You see, Hotel Z had spent over a month building up a healthy account with us. They had been making brand deposits with us from our first point of contact and continued to do so throughout our experience with them. We had already formed a belief that Hotel Z was a good organization that cared about us as customers, so when the noisy neighbor problem arose it was the first bad experience in a series of good ones, and it was forgiven.

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In the language of our deposit metaphor, Hotel Z had made a lot of deposits and when there was finally a withdrawal, it only depleted the balance in the account a little bit, leaving a healthy, positive balance.

Each Experience Has Its Own Value
An important aspect of brand deposits to understand is that every deposit or withdrawal is not the same size — each customer experience does not have the same impact. A company can provide 10 average but positive experiences and those cannot have as much impact as a single, terrible experience. Likewise, one incredible experience can easily outweigh a few minor annoyances, leaving a net positive balance.

Brand Deposits Are Interesting, But How Do I Use Them?
Understanding the idea of brand deposits is useful from a conceptual standpoint, but the actionable takeaways are not immediately clear. Below are two ways you can use the idea of brand deposits to build up some healthy account balances with your customers.

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1. Focus on the First Experience
As you are going through the implementation chapter at the end of this book, you will have to decide not only what technique to focus on but at what point in the customer experience to concentrate. The concept of brand deposits gives us an important lesson in that decision tree. All things being equal, the first stage of the customer experience is the most important. Of course, the stages of the customer experience are not always equal. You might find that at one stage of your customer experience you have a number of problems and most of your lost customers result from the experience at that stage. In that case, you would focus on that portion of the experience.

It is so much easier to be nice, to be respectful, to put yourself in your customers' shoes and try to understand how you might help them before they ask for help, than it is to try to mend a broken customer relationship.
Mark Cuban

However, if you have no major difference between stages, focus on making your first stage as killer as possible. Take a look at the first aspects of the customer experience that you truly control and figure out how to WOW your customers at that stage, creating sizable brand deposits from the start.

2. Understand When a Customer’s Balance Is Low
If you believe in the concept of brand deposits, then you understand that when a customer’s balance is “low” it is a good time to make a sizable deposit. Train your staff to recognize when a customer has a low balance and empower them to take actions to add deposits.

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For instance, in the story of Hotel Z above. I was having a quick drink in the hotel bar with the speaker and some other colleagues after the event. When we asked for the check, the waiter told us that it was taken care of by our hotel contact. She had noticed us sitting in the bar, and even though she was on the banquet side of the business, she made sure our drinks were free. She found an opportunity to refill our account with a nice gesture.

Never Forget That Customers Are Human Beings
A final note. Brand deposits are but a metaphor — a useful (and very basic) framework for viewing the customer’s relationship with an organization. The idea of brand deposits is NOT to view customers as bank accounts. In fact, the idea of brand deposits is to understand that the customer relationship is a relationship, and that relationship is based on an accretion of all the experiences, positive and negative, and it is these experiences that form the brand deposits and withdrawals that accumulate over the customer’s lifetime with your organization. And it is with this focus on the customer relationship that we go to our 7th and final Customer Service Secret…

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Organizations can approach customers with either a transactional or a relational outlook. Transactional approaches are most typified by the stereotype of the used car salesperson, someone who will do or say anything to extract as much advantage from a transaction as possible. The transactional view of the customer is not a view of the customer at all; it is a view of the sale itself — a transaction that should be profit maximized without regard for the impact that will be felt outside of the sale. Transactional thinking is almost always short term thinking. Customer service experts know that a relational approach to customers creates bonds that are far more profitable in the long run than simply maximizing the profit on a single sale. Why focus on relationships?

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Because the value of a customer is almost always never wholly realized within the confines of a transaction. Repeat customers are the lifeblood of almost every successful business. What about a business in which repeat customers are rare? Even in those cases, the customer has the potential to bring in new customers through word of mouth and, as such, has an economic value that transcends the single sale.

Another way to look at the relational approach is to understand the concept of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). As we discussed in Understanding Customer Lifetime Value: A Non-Geek’s In an issue of Community Banker magazine, Michael Guide Henshaw of MCorp. Consulting of San Rafael, CA says, “It costs 5 to 6 times more to attract a new customer “Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) attempts to determine the than to retain an existing one. The average cost of economic value a customer brings over their “lifetime” with acquiring a new customer is around $325, and payback the business. At the heart of understanding CLV lies the takes about three years at average attrition rates.” recognition that a customer does not represent a single transaction but a relationship that is far more valuable than any And if that is not scary enough, studies show 60% one-time exchange.” to 80% of lost customers have described No matter whether you are part of a large or a small organization, themselves as “satisfied” or “very it is important to have a sense of what your customer’s business is satisfied” in surveys just prior worth over the average lifetime. The closer you can get to an actual to defecting. CLV, the more clearly you can know what your pain points are when

The Real Bank Scare Do relationships matter? In banking they do!

Your Relationship with Your Customer Has a Value

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handling customer service issues and incentives. However, if you do not know the CLV of your customer, you can simply begin by accepting that one exists and that your customer has value beyond the sale.

The Ritz-Carlton’s Famous $2,000 Rule

Known as one of the gold standards of customer service, the Ritz Carlton has been rightly studied and dissected over the years in an attempt to find the “secret” Ritz sauce. Entire books have been written just on the Ritz’s customer service. One aspect of the Ritz’s service that has received a lot of coverage is the fact that the Ritz empowers its employees to spend up to $2,000 to solve any customer problems without asking for a manager. Yes, you read that right, RitzCarlton employees can spend up to $2,000 per incident, not per year, to rescue a guest experience. What is interesting about this famous number is that the majority of authors who mention it leave out an equally vital statistic. You see, the $2,000 is always mentioned in the context of how important employee empowerment is to great customer service — as if empowering employees to excess is the key to a profitable and successful business. What the authors often leave out is this: the average Ritz-Carlton customer will spend $250,000 with the Ritz over their lifetime. Like any smart, profitable organization, the Ritz did not pull the $2,000 figure out of thin air. The Ritz has studied its customer base and understands the value of the relationship with their customers and what they are willing to do to maintain those relationships. Put in that context, the $2,000 does not seem so hard to conceive. The Ritz Carlton values relationships over transactions, and for anyone who has ever stayed at one of their properties, that is no secret.

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Knowing that your business probably doesn’t have a $2,000 per-incident budget for service recovery, it’s important to focus on how your business can use the same principle to your advantage. It begins by embracing the idea of a relational approach over a transactional approach. When businesses do not approach customers transactionally, when they do not attempt to extract every possible advantage from their customers, those businesses are rewarded with loyalty and a customer relationship that is worth far more than any individual transaction. Far more. So, now that we’re all on the same page and agree that developing customer relationships is of the utmost importance, how do we get started?

3 Secrets to Building Instant Customer Relationships
Customer relationships last a long time (we hope!) and creating them, nurturing them, and even saving them is a topic worthy of an entire book in itself. There are many ways to begin the process of creating better relationships with your customers, from creating a customer journey map to identifying the typical pain points that hurt the customer relationship. However, in the spirit of the Pareto principle, we are going to focus on three killer and simple ways you can quickly and easily approach customer relationship building to produce huge results.

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Bring Them Onboard the Trust Train
What is the most important aspect of any relationship? Trust. The relationship with your customer is no different. One of the easiest ways to establish trust and forge a bond with your customers is by focusing on the customer onboarding process. What is onboarding? Simple, the act of guiding your customer through a series of processes early in their customer journey that will help them to develop positive feelings for your company and perhaps even begin certain purchasing behaviors.

Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.
H. Ross Perot

Onboarding should be a conscious choice about the experiences you want your customer to have in the early stages of the relationship with your business. For instance, in a retail business I own, when a customer signs up with our business, the following happens: 1. They are given a surprise gift bag on their first return visit 2. They receive a handwritten thank you card from our client services manager within a few days 3. They often receive a second thank you card from the service provider within the first few weeks 4. They receive a call a few weeks later to see if they have any questions and to make sure they have another appointment booked The onboarding process makes sure that we have touched the client multiple times in multiple ways in the first weeks of their experience with us. The goal is to make the client feel valued and to open up the lines of

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communication so that questions or concerns can be addressed before they grow into something unhealthy for the relationship. If you are starting an onboarding process from scratch, do not go overboard right out of the gate. It is tempting to design elaborate processes where the customer receives an incredible amount of focus and attention. Resist this temptation. Remember, if you do not currently have an onboarding process, every step you add is something you are not currently doing and are going to have to find the monetary and human resources to implement. Never forget, these are customer service lessons for the real world! Onboarding takes time and energy. Start small and build from there.

What Is Your Current Onboarding Process? To answer this question, you simply have to ask one: What happens when customers start doing business with my company? If your answer is something to the effect of “they buy something then we hope they come back and buy something else” — you need to work on your onboarding process!

Determine the Optimum Contact Experience
When you look at your customer communications, you only need to ask yourself one question: how much of your customer communication is initiated by you and how much by the customer? After you are past the onboarding phase, you need to decide the optimum contact experience. To do this perfectly, you would need to truly map the customer journey and tie your communications to the different phases of the customer experience.

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However, you can get very good results by adopting an 80/20 approach in this area. Where and when should you be contacting your customers to keep them engaged and feeling supported without becoming a bother? Are there key points in the customer experience where a follow up call is key? How long before a customer without contact begins to fade away, where you are not top of mind? An experience I had after moving to Florida shows how important regular and strategic customer contact is to forming a strong relationship: Soon after moving to Florida, I needed to find both auto and renter’s insurance. Not knowing anyone in town, I went on the Internet and found a firm that was geographically close to me and that seemed legitimate enough. We’ll call it Ted’s Insurance. The owner of Ted’s and his staff were plenty nice, and I had no problems getting my insurance. But after the sale, I never heard from them again. They were there if I had a problem, but not once did they contact me proactively to see how I was doing or to check on my insurance needs. It was the textbook example of good customer service, not great customer service. A year later when I began opening multiple businesses and needing a host of insurance policies, I went with a company recommended by a business colleague in a similar business. Ted’s Insurance simply had not put in the effort to develop a strong relationship with me, and as a result, I went with the opportunity that was in front of me. Between multiple businesses and personal, I’ve probably purchased 20 different insurance policies in the 6 years since I first got my auto and renter’s from Ted’s Insurance, but I never bothered going back to Ted’s for a quote.

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Relationships must be formed, then they must be nurtured. That is where finding the optimum communication points and patterns can be essential.

WOW the Heart
In all the discussion about WOW moments, the fact that there are many different types of WOW’s is not often discussed. While all WOW moments have resonance, WOW’s that touch a customer emotionally are an instant way to form a bond upon which a relationship can be built. Of course, the opportunities to make an emotional connection with a WOW are not always available; however, you can still make incredible headway in relationship building by training your team to look for those moments where they can make an emotional impact with incredible customer service. Chris Hurn of Mercantile Capital Corporation related a great anecdote in the Huffington Post about a visit his family made to the Ritz Carlton in Amelia Island. The short version of the story is that Hurn’s young son left his stuffed giraffe “Joshie” at the resort. Hurn’s son was upset, of course, but Hurn managed to convince him that Joshie was fine and was taking an extended vacation at the resort. Hurn called the Ritz and discovered that Joshie had been found. He asked the Loss Prevention Team at the hotel if they could take a picture of Joshie on a lounge chair to support what he had told his son. They agreed. What the Ritz staff sent back to Hurn was a true example of WOW service that strikes an emotional chord. The staff not only took pictures of Joshie in a lounge chair, but hanging out with other stuffed friends, getting a massage, driving a golf cart and doing other activities around the resort. Not to mention putting all of the pictures in a binder and creating a Loss Prevention ID card for Joshie.

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Sure, the staff at the Ritz could have spent $2,000 helping out Hurn and his son, but all it really took was some ingenuity and a willingness to make an effort to create an emotional WOW that left an indelible impression. (See more pictures of Joshie and watch Hurn’s video story here.) As this chapter demonstrates, customer relationships are incredibly important and can be formed and nurtured in a few simple steps. The power of relationships is our final secret because strong, profitable relationships represent the end goal that the 6 previous techniques hope to achieve. Now, that we are done with our 7 secret customer service techniques, let’s figure out...

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How to Implement the Secret Techniques in Your Business
Is your head spinning yet? Is your brain brimming with ideas to improve your organization’s service delivery? If I have succeeded in the previous chapters, then you should have more ideas for changes you want to make than you have time to do them. It’s time for a little technique triage.

Step 1: Analyze Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Review the list of secret techniques below and rank them. Put a 1 by the concept that your organization is most competent at and work your way down to the area you have the most challenges with. Where are you strong, and where are you weak? #1. They Know Consistency Is The Greatest Wow of All #2 They Believe in Invisible Systems

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#3 They Hire for Personality Over Skill #4 They Prepare For What Will Go Wrong #5 They Prevent Problem Customers from Hogging Resources #6 They Understand The Power of Brand Deposits #7 They Value Relationships Over Transactions Remember, just because you put a 1 by it does not mean you do not have room to improve and just because you put a 7 by something does not mean you are terrible at it. This discussion is all relative, which is why it is important to do…

Step 2: Determine the Key Impact Areas
What you are best at and what you are worst at do not necessarily equate to what impacts your business the most. Look at the list above: what is really making an impact on the customer experience your organization provides?

Step 3: Analyze Your Ideas
Hopefully, you have thought of a number of ideas as you have read through 7 Secret Customer Service Techniques Every Expert Knows. Now, you need to determine which ideas are the most relevant. 1. Does the idea address a key impact area? 2. Does the idea have the potential to move the needle quickly on your service delivery? 3. Can the idea be implemented easily and do the benefits of the idea outweigh the cost/effort of implementing it?

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Ease of implementation is key! For instance, say you want to use invisible systems to personalize some of your customer communication, but you work in the medical field. You can do it, and you think it is important. However, due to privacy concerns, HIPAA protocols, and corporate policies you know that personalization is going to take a massive effort to implement. If that is the case, you might be better off focusing on another area for now. Analyze each idea through the lenses of organizational need and return on effort.

Step 4: Repeat the Above Steps with Your Team
Let’s face it; your people see things differently than you do. They bring different perspectives to the the table, and these perspectives are crucial to understanding the challenges that occur on the front lines. Once you have done the exercise above on your own, it is time to bring your team in to the process. You might want to bring in team leaders, a key group of employees, or everyone. That decision depends on your unique situation. Either way, it is important to involve your team to get different perspectives on the answers and to get buy-in on the change process. Make sure not to share your own results until after they have done the process themselves; you need honesty not approval. A few final thoughts…

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Quick Wins Are Great…
This book was written to get straight to the heart of key techniques without a lot of filler and without a lot of fluff. I want you to get some quick wins. They are good for customers, good for your team, and good for your organization as a whole. Have grand ideas for a complete service overhaul? That’s great! But sometimes that takes time. Don’t be afraid to implement halfway for now. We are programmed to look down upon half-measures, but in customer service half is often (but not always!) better than none. Customer service is based on human relations — if you can’t do a smile and a wave, at least do a smile.☺

…But Keep the Big Picture in Mind
As you are working to quickly implement some of the secret techniques, you might have a longer term vision of how you want to deliver service in your organization. This vision might require major investments in systems, skills, and people and might not be something you are looking to do in the short term. If you have a grand vision for the future, make sure the quick wins and short term changes you are making set you up for success down the road. Do not set up a system in the short term that will not fit in your vision for the long term. If you do, it will become yet another obstacle to realizing your long term service vision. If you follow the 4 steps above, you should be able to easily determine the secret techniques that will provide you the most “bang for your buck.” If you have any questions on the process, my contact information is on the next page.

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Thank You!!!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this eBook and found as much value reading it as I found writing it. I know how busy you are, and I truly appreciate you taking time to welcome me and my ideas into your life. If you are a regular reader of Customers That Stick, I cannot thank you enough for your continued support. It means a lot to me. If this eBook is your first exposure to our customer service content, I welcome you to the Customers That Stick community and hope that you will take the opportunities below to connect further with me and the great people who interact with our blog every week.

I Would Love Your Feedback!
If you enjoyed the free content in 7 Secret Customer Service Techniques Every Expert Knows. I would love to hear your thoughts! Please leave a comment HERE. Our goal is to have 100 people comment on this eBook, and we would love to include you and a link to your website if you have one!

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If you would rather share your comments privately or have any questions on the material in the book, feel free to contact me directly at [email protected] Finally, please connect with me on social media, where I regularly share useful, relevant content on customer service and the customer experience.

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Thank you again for taking the time to read this eBook! I look forward to connecting with you further. Yours in service! Adam Toporek

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About the Author
Adam Toporek is the founder of Customers That Stick, one of the most popular customer service and customer experience blogs on the web. He has a Bachelors of Business Administration in accounting from the University of Georgia and a Masters of Business Administration with a marketing concentration from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Adam comes from a long line of entrepreneurs and has owned numerous businesses in a number of industries. In recent years, he has been an area/ regional developer and franchise owner for two major national franchise concepts. He focuses on delivering customer service expertise that has been proven in the real world of modern business.

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Photo Credits
Title page Copyright Page Chapter 1 Header Chapter 2 Header Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Header Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Header Chapter 5 Header Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Header Chapter 7 Header Chapter 7 Thank You! Woman with short blonde hair Copyright mark Bellhop gentleman Women telling secrets Women’s shoes Woman pointing Woman extending hand Cat Vampire man Man on cell phone Shackled hands Woman with money sign Male and Female business team Heart Electrical outlet

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Citations
Please note that these citations refer to text we could not cite using a live link. All other citations can be found throughout the body of the eBook via links. “Secret Service is the implementation of hidden systems...” John R. DiJulius III, Secret Service: Hidden Systems That Deliver Unforgettable Customer Service (New York: AMACOM, 2003), 1-2. “It costs 5 to 6 times more to attract a new customer...” Debra Cope, “In Search of the Loyal Customer,” Community Banker: Vol. 25 Issue 3. (2006): 24. Link to pdf

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