Here is an observation as a trainer working with managers from hundreds of different companies. All companies will tell you that the customer is the most important person to their business.
If that is true than why would some companies put their lowest paid (pay is a symbol of the value that the company see’s in that individual), lowest educated, least experienced, and often brand new employee in a position which has the highest amount of face time with their customer? This situation is seen in banking, retail, and many sales organizations.
Not too long ago I had a customer service issue with my wireless telephone provider. We needed a phone for the third line we were carrying but not using. The phone needed to be easy to use, as it was for my wife’s 75 year old mother.
I wanted to pay less than 29.99 (truthfully I was willing to go a little more than that) as that was the price for a prepaid smart phone which would also solve the problem.
I was introduced to Chip the customer service representative. Chip is a good kid, and a fine employee. I am certain that he was following procedure. I explained to Chip what I wanted to do. The best offer he could make was $115.00 (after rebate) if I sign for a new 2 year contract. The second option would be $179.00 if I did not upgrade the contract.
WAY, way too much money for a phone Mom is likely to loose (she is getting forgetful these days).
I expressed my disappointment and asked Chip “what can you do to satisfy this customer with this situation?” The trained text book response came from his mouth “I gave you two options, that is the best I can do”
“Neither of those are satisfactory Chip” I replied, “help me out here”.
Firmly holding his ground “That is the best I can do”.
BANG! Their zealot customer was lost. I saw red.
The poor kid is an impotent customer service representative, made so by the limitations of his non-empowerment. He did not ask “What would fix this for you Mr. Walker” “What seems fair?” Not in the script, no doubt. Policy is policy, and all that.
Heads up my friends your policy is poison when it fails to delight your customer. This is not you against the customer. This is you for the customer.
In the end after considerable escalation on my part, I sent an email to 50 or so VP’s that I tracked down on the internet. The final outcome was that I got a free phone. That’s not what I wanted. I was willing to pay a fair price.
The point is that the person with the capability to solve the problem and delight the customer was no where near the point of customer contact.
Really, you must agree that this is counter intuitive.
Imagine if face time with the customer in these industries was an honor to be earned by proving a depth of knowledge and experience with the organization. Imagine if the policy were “no one gets to provide service to the customer with out a minimum of 2 years of experience, and a customer interaction certification (which carries respect and a significant pay increase)”. Individuals with this level of experience and depth of knowledge wear a sense of confidence that instantly gives them credibility with the customer.
We all know that the person who solved my problem is paid 5 times what Chip is paid and has a great depth of experience with the company and the power to take action.
The reputation of a company that would dare to do such a thing would become legendary. Actually it has. In many ways we are describing the customer service philosophies of Southwest Airlines. They are proof that putting experienced, knowledgeable, empowered people in front of your customers works.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Drivers of Success
(Click on title above for link to article)
The Dale Carnegie Immersion Seminar here at our Bordentown location started on Weds March 10. We were looking at the 5 drivers of success in the class.
The drivers are: Self-confidence, people skills, communication skills, leadership, and controlling our attitude or stress management.
The participants in the session concluded that these key concepts are pivotal to the on going viability of individuals in all business situations. Recently my friend Kevin Sensenig wrote an article about these concepts in Quality Magazine. The link above will give you his article. I highly suggest that you read it.
Kevin is VP of Organizational Development with Dale Carnegie and Associates, and more importantly he is an insightful writer. You will find Kevin's thoughts to be creative, and applicable. The best idea's are the one's with highest "stickiness" factor and this article has Gorilla glue in it.
The Dale Carnegie Immersion Seminar here at our Bordentown location started on Weds March 10. We were looking at the 5 drivers of success in the class.
The drivers are: Self-confidence, people skills, communication skills, leadership, and controlling our attitude or stress management.
The participants in the session concluded that these key concepts are pivotal to the on going viability of individuals in all business situations. Recently my friend Kevin Sensenig wrote an article about these concepts in Quality Magazine. The link above will give you his article. I highly suggest that you read it.
Kevin is VP of Organizational Development with Dale Carnegie and Associates, and more importantly he is an insightful writer. You will find Kevin's thoughts to be creative, and applicable. The best idea's are the one's with highest "stickiness" factor and this article has Gorilla glue in it.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Public Speaking Lesson
OK a year and four months from my first post -- I said this is new to me. In that time it is funny how things have come full circle. I am currently preparing for the upcoming High Impact Presentations Workshop to be presented here at our office on March 22 and 29.
So, a little sheepishly here is the story of how I learned the hard way that you, the presenter, have to take responsibility for what you deliver and not become a victim of the situation.
“Dale Carnegie be Damned” was the welcome I got as I took the podium once to deliver a club talk. A drunken old dentist at one of the front tables apparently felt compelled to voice his opinion regarding human relations. The talk was titled “9 Ideas to Manage Your Office More Effectively”. It was downhill from there. This was one of my earliest talks, I gave for an association of dentists, and their staffs.
Sometimes I learn a huge amount from a single experience, this was one of those incidents.
Richard Bach, in his book Illusions has a quote that says “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in it’s hands, you seek problems because you need their gifts”.
I’m here to tell you I got Santa’s bag full of gifts that night.
I arrived 30 minutes early to set up for my talk. The dentists and their associates were at the bar, getting happy. I went upstairs to the banquet room, I observed that the microphone was attached to the podium, I mean screwed down eternally (I figured maybe the previous speaker liberated the last one). The flip chart easel was about 10 feet away from the speaking area. The room was lit in a romantic style, with candles on the tables, nice ambiance if you were amorously inclined toward the person sitting next to you. Catastrophic lighting if you were expected to command the room as a presenter. The round tables seated 10 people, half of whom had their backs to the podium, given my novice experience at the time it may have been their blessing, but it was my curse.
With all of these elements in place, I put my visual aids where I wanted them, and sat down to eat dinner.
Just as we finished dinner, I asked one of the servers if they knew anyone who could turn the lights up. The response was less than enthusiastic, and the final answer was that the person who knew how to do it, had gone home. This was the setting we had for the night. After dinner was concluded, the meeting planner got up and read my introduction. Several people actually listened. Then, I was on.
No one moved. Not a single person repositioned their chairs to face the front of the space. As I began I had already lost 50% of the room. Then of course the goodwill ambassador at the front table made his remark, and I felt the butterflies go in every direction. So now, I got mad. Add an attitude problem to the mix of other circumstances, and you try to deliver a talk on effective human relation skills. I was doomed!
I opened with a quick story about a card playing friend of mine, which is a setup for a magic trick with cards that I use as an attention getter. The final tag line on this bit is that “you are going to learn a few ideas tonight, which will help you to stack the deck in your favor, when it comes to managing people”. The table I sat at applauded this.
Everyone else in the room turned to look at that table, wondering what they had just missed.
Moving into the body of my talk, I attempted to make the leap back and forth from the microphone to the flip chart to illustrate my points. I think I looked like the plate spinning guy on the Ed Sullivan Show. It didn’t matter much as the few people who were listening to me had gotten pulled into the conversations at their respective tables. I think the only audience I had at that point was the meeting planner and her husband.
I reached the point where I was done. My talk was not finished, but I was done. I made a remark or two alluding to the fact that I hoped they had benefited from my ideas, and turned it back over to the meeting planner. She got a halfhearted round of applause from a few people and we both sat down.
What an embarrassment. I had worked hard to prepare my talk. The content was strong, and it had worked terrifically a week earlier at a leadership function. The AT&T group had sent in a fantastic testimonial letter on this same presentation, after I presented it to their group. I couldn’t understand what had happened to sabotage my talk that night. Why did it crash and burn like that?
For several weeks I thought about why this had happened, and what I could do to keep a disaster like this from scarring my reputation in the future.
Several conclusions surfaced, and to this day these are the guidelines I use to ensure a success whenever I speak to a group of people:
1. Find out in advance what will be happening before and after you are speaking (is there a cocktail hour?) The state of mind of the audience is important.
2. Know your audience. Ask the meeting planner for demographics of the group such as; education, position in company, age range, ratio of men to women.
3. Give the meeting planner specific minimum requirements for the success of the presentation, things like; bright lighting in the room, detachable microphone with enough cord to move around, blank flip chart pads with fresh markers, and anything else you personally need to be an excellent speaker.
4. From the moment you arrive, take charge. It is your responsibility to give them a fantastic delivery of your talk, do what ever it takes to make that happen. Don’t be rude, be persistent, and firm. They are expecting you to do well.
5. Before you begin to speak, facilitate the room into a configuration that will allow everyone to see you. I have even asked people to move their chairs onto the dance floor, and set it up theatre style, when that made the most sense.
These 5 simple guidelines have made a world of difference in the success of my talks and the impact I have on an audience. Never be a victim to the circumstances, be proactive and you will be dynamic.
So, a little sheepishly here is the story of how I learned the hard way that you, the presenter, have to take responsibility for what you deliver and not become a victim of the situation.
“Dale Carnegie be Damned” was the welcome I got as I took the podium once to deliver a club talk. A drunken old dentist at one of the front tables apparently felt compelled to voice his opinion regarding human relations. The talk was titled “9 Ideas to Manage Your Office More Effectively”. It was downhill from there. This was one of my earliest talks, I gave for an association of dentists, and their staffs.
Sometimes I learn a huge amount from a single experience, this was one of those incidents.
Richard Bach, in his book Illusions has a quote that says “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in it’s hands, you seek problems because you need their gifts”.
I’m here to tell you I got Santa’s bag full of gifts that night.
I arrived 30 minutes early to set up for my talk. The dentists and their associates were at the bar, getting happy. I went upstairs to the banquet room, I observed that the microphone was attached to the podium, I mean screwed down eternally (I figured maybe the previous speaker liberated the last one). The flip chart easel was about 10 feet away from the speaking area. The room was lit in a romantic style, with candles on the tables, nice ambiance if you were amorously inclined toward the person sitting next to you. Catastrophic lighting if you were expected to command the room as a presenter. The round tables seated 10 people, half of whom had their backs to the podium, given my novice experience at the time it may have been their blessing, but it was my curse.
With all of these elements in place, I put my visual aids where I wanted them, and sat down to eat dinner.
Just as we finished dinner, I asked one of the servers if they knew anyone who could turn the lights up. The response was less than enthusiastic, and the final answer was that the person who knew how to do it, had gone home. This was the setting we had for the night. After dinner was concluded, the meeting planner got up and read my introduction. Several people actually listened. Then, I was on.
No one moved. Not a single person repositioned their chairs to face the front of the space. As I began I had already lost 50% of the room. Then of course the goodwill ambassador at the front table made his remark, and I felt the butterflies go in every direction. So now, I got mad. Add an attitude problem to the mix of other circumstances, and you try to deliver a talk on effective human relation skills. I was doomed!
I opened with a quick story about a card playing friend of mine, which is a setup for a magic trick with cards that I use as an attention getter. The final tag line on this bit is that “you are going to learn a few ideas tonight, which will help you to stack the deck in your favor, when it comes to managing people”. The table I sat at applauded this.
Everyone else in the room turned to look at that table, wondering what they had just missed.
Moving into the body of my talk, I attempted to make the leap back and forth from the microphone to the flip chart to illustrate my points. I think I looked like the plate spinning guy on the Ed Sullivan Show. It didn’t matter much as the few people who were listening to me had gotten pulled into the conversations at their respective tables. I think the only audience I had at that point was the meeting planner and her husband.
I reached the point where I was done. My talk was not finished, but I was done. I made a remark or two alluding to the fact that I hoped they had benefited from my ideas, and turned it back over to the meeting planner. She got a halfhearted round of applause from a few people and we both sat down.
What an embarrassment. I had worked hard to prepare my talk. The content was strong, and it had worked terrifically a week earlier at a leadership function. The AT&T group had sent in a fantastic testimonial letter on this same presentation, after I presented it to their group. I couldn’t understand what had happened to sabotage my talk that night. Why did it crash and burn like that?
For several weeks I thought about why this had happened, and what I could do to keep a disaster like this from scarring my reputation in the future.
Several conclusions surfaced, and to this day these are the guidelines I use to ensure a success whenever I speak to a group of people:
1. Find out in advance what will be happening before and after you are speaking (is there a cocktail hour?) The state of mind of the audience is important.
2. Know your audience. Ask the meeting planner for demographics of the group such as; education, position in company, age range, ratio of men to women.
3. Give the meeting planner specific minimum requirements for the success of the presentation, things like; bright lighting in the room, detachable microphone with enough cord to move around, blank flip chart pads with fresh markers, and anything else you personally need to be an excellent speaker.
4. From the moment you arrive, take charge. It is your responsibility to give them a fantastic delivery of your talk, do what ever it takes to make that happen. Don’t be rude, be persistent, and firm. They are expecting you to do well.
5. Before you begin to speak, facilitate the room into a configuration that will allow everyone to see you. I have even asked people to move their chairs onto the dance floor, and set it up theatre style, when that made the most sense.
These 5 simple guidelines have made a world of difference in the success of my talks and the impact I have on an audience. Never be a victim to the circumstances, be proactive and you will be dynamic.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Welcome
Welcome to my blog,
This is a new way of communicating for me. It is exciting and challenging at the onset. Since I am not sure where to start I am going to start by sharing some links.
First it makes sense to point you toward my website by way of introduction:
www.jumpoutof yourboat.com
There you will find pleanty of information about who I am and what I am up to.
Recently I have been tapped a lot regarding tips on public speaking so my next entry will be a story that illustrates some fundamental responsibilities and ideas that will set up a presenter for success.
Thanks for dropping in.
Fred
This is a new way of communicating for me. It is exciting and challenging at the onset. Since I am not sure where to start I am going to start by sharing some links.
First it makes sense to point you toward my website by way of introduction:
www.jumpoutof yourboat.com
There you will find pleanty of information about who I am and what I am up to.
Recently I have been tapped a lot regarding tips on public speaking so my next entry will be a story that illustrates some fundamental responsibilities and ideas that will set up a presenter for success.
Thanks for dropping in.
Fred
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)