Phil's Customer Service blog

I heard this from Nigel Crouch when he and I were both presenting to the UK Construction Industry Leadership Excellence Conference recently. I haven’t had a chance to check it or ask Nigel for more info., but I’m reproducing it here anyway, as it’s such a funny example of a creative approach to innovating for customers:

McVities, the biscuit maker, got together with Tarmac, the experts in creating sticky road toppings, to create a new form of confectionery – two layers of biscuit with a gooey bit in the middle. Tarmac’s chemists helped McVities’ chemists get the gooey bit right, I presume.

Lesson? Look for experts from different sectors. Combine things that haven’t been combined before to come up with something new for customers.

I’m doing some work with Leaders in London (which takes place at the end of the year) and notice that the innovation expert Vijay Govindarajan, who is talking at Leaders in London, has a technique he calls ‘adjacency innovation’, which is a similar principle: take two things that work in different areas and try putting them alongside each other to see if you can make something new out of them.

Interesting presentation from Virgin’s group brand manager for customer service, Michael Murphy, here:

[slideshare id=256120&doc=virgins-crown-jewels-great-customer-service-1202365504692270-2]

Roger Dow, senior VP at Marriott, likes telling this story. I heard it from Don Peppers.

Dow asked his IT people to come up with something that would give them a fraction of the ‘customer recognition’ capacity of the Ritz-Carlton hotels: just enough to enable a clerk at the check-in desk to say ‘Welcome back’ to a guest because the computer tells them that guest has stayed there before.

The IT team came back a few weeks later and said they could do it for $1.3 million and it would take 18 months. Dow went ballistic. Shortly after, he was visiting a small mid-western Marriott. As he approached the check-in desk, the clerk smiled warmly. ‘Welcome back, sir’, she said.

Dow dropped his bag in astonishment ‘What did you say? I’ve been trying to get our IT people to make that work for months. I didn’t tell you I’d been here before! And you don’t know who I am….’ he blustered.

The check-in clerk, thinking she had done something wrong, explained: ‘Well, you see, when the bellboy picks up the luggage from the car, he says to the guest: ‘Is this your first visit?’

You must have said ‘no’. Because, when he puts the bag down next to the desk here he winks at me. That’s code. It means you’re a returning guest, so I say ‘Welcome back, sir…’

“Customer groups are good at complaining, but not at generating new ideas. You have to do it for them.”

– Edward de Bono, talking at Leaders in London 2007

I just wrote these as part of a ‘Start The Year’ email newsletter for a client and thought you might like them, too. And, as a Leadership Hub member has just emailed me saying she wants some inspiration on ‘Core Purpose’ for a front-line training module she is writing on that subject, I’ve included a couple of snippets on bringing your organization’s core purpose to life, too, particularly for front-line people. See below. Happy New Year! Phil.

* * *

THINGS TO DO IN 2008 TO BE MORE CUSTOMER-FOCUSSED (AND A BETTER PERSON AND MANAGER) IN 2008

1. THINK ‘PURPOSE’ NOT ‘FUNCTION’

“The front-desk’s purpose is not to check people in. That’s its function. The purpose is to welcome the customer.”

“Purpose is too often ignored in favor of function. Functional competence can be commoditized – you’re just as good at checking people in (or whatever the process is) as your competitor.”

“But, purpose is something that frees people up to contribute with imagination and even passion. You can’t impose a purpose, though. Leaders set the purpose of an organization. But, employees make the decision to buy into it. So it’s a compact or agreement rather than simply following instructions or fulfilling a function.”

– Theo Gilbert-Jamison, V-P. Training & Organizational Effectiveness, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

* * *

2. THE PURPOSE OF A HOUSEKEEPER

This is what happens when, say, a hotel housekeeper, sees her purpose as ‘enlivening the senses’ (the Ritz-Carlton purpose) rather than simply clearing up a room. It’s a story I heard Tom Peters tell:

A customer wrote to the Ritz-Carlton expressing his astonishment at the behavior of the housekeeper during a stay in New York with his wife and daughter. After a day sight-seeing in the city, they returned to their room, only for the daughter to complain that her teddy bear was missing.

After a quick search, they found it hidden in the towel cupboard, with a foil-wrapped chocolate clasped in its paws. The next day, the bear had disappeared again; the daughter found it under the bed with another chocolate in its paws.

At the end of each day, for the duration of their stay, the daughter couldn’t wait to get back to the room to play ‘find the teddy’ with a housekeeping maid she never actually met. “It was the best part of her stay,” wrote the customer.

What can you do to help bring your organization’s purpose to life in 2008, so your people deliver an exceptional customer experience like this housekeeper did?

* * *

3. STOP TAKING DECISIONS. START MAKING THINGS HAPPEN

‘Too many managers mistake decisions for action. A decision is not the same as action. Use plans, analysis, meetings & presentations to INSPIRE deeds, not as a substitute for action.’

– Stanford Professor Robert Sutton

* * *

4. TRUST MORE

‘Do you trust enough to be trusted?’

– Lao Tzu, from ‘Understanding The Mysteries’. The more trust you give in 2008, the more you’ll get.

* * *

5. BLAME LESS

‘Blame or finger-pointing and lack of personal responsibility
Keep the gloomy game going.
They keep stealing your hidden genius and potential wealth,
Giving them to a dimwit on the sidelines with
No leadership, heart or financial skills.
Dear one,
Wise
Up!’

– Hafiz, 14th century Sufi poet. The less blame you mete out in 2008, the more personal responsibility your people will take.

* * *

6. MORE RESOLUTIONS

From Robert K. Cooper’s great book, ‘The Other 90 Percent’…

‘In my family it is a tradition that each New Year, someone will say a few words about what we have learned from the past or hope for the future. On the eve of the millennium…I wrote a short poem…and read it to them:

To lead by example…
Love as if you will live forever
Work as if you have no need for money
Dream as if no-one can say no
Have fun as if you never have to grow up
Sing as if no-one else if listening
Care as if everything depends on your caring
And raise a banner where a banner never flew.’

I’m not sure if Cooper did actually originate that, but we’ve all seen versions of it doing the rounds by email, with extra lines added such as

‘Love like you’ve never been hurt’
and my favorite
‘Dance like nobody’s watching’

* * *

7. EVEN MORE RESOLUTIONS

This one first surfaced in 2000. I know we’ve all seen it and I’m pretty sure it didn’t come from the Dalai Lama, but it’s the right time of year for a reminder. It’s supposedly the Dalai Lama’s recipe for starting your year afresh…

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

* * *

8. AND A SHORT ONE FROM EINSTEIN: BREAK YOUR HABITS

‘How many people are trapped in their everyday habits; part numb, part frightened, part indifferent?

To have a better life we must keep choosing how we are living’.

– Albert Einstein. Challenge inertia and your own habits, and the habits your organization practices towards customers, to change ‘the way we do things around here’ at work in 2008. Your customers will be the happier for it.

* * *

AND, FINALLY…THE TEN-SECOND FUNNY: TOP TEN NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

1. I resolve to work with neglected children (my own).
2. I will answer my snail mail with the same enthusiasm with which I answer my e-mail.
3. When I hear a funny joke I will not reply, “LOL… LOL!”
4. I will not ring the steward/stewardess button on airplanes just to get his/her phone number.
5. I will balance my checkbook (on my nose).
6. I will think of a password for my computer other than “password.”
7. I will try to figure out why I “really” need 11 e-mail addresses.
8. I will go into McDonald’s and order a McSpreader
9. I will go into McDonald’s and order a McSlurry
10. I will find out why the correspondence course on “Mail Fraud” that I purchased never showed up.

* * *

THAT’S ENOUGH RESOLUTIONS!

Jim Sterne, one of my favourite web people, got this confirmation email when he ordered a CD from CD Baby: shows you can inject a little personality into the dullest of customer communications if you try. Mind your brand, though: this kind of humour only works for some…

“Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

“A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

“Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

“We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, November 18th.

“I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

“Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year.’ We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!

“Sigh…

“Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000”

From a post by Jason Cowsill in The Leadership Hub

From Chris Daffy’s latest newsletter:

“When I’m in Bucharest, which is now almost once every month, I usually stay at the J W Marriott. It’s a great hotel and the people there always make me feel very welcome. Each night, after the room attendant has turned down my bed they leave a chocolate, feedback form and a card with a ‘thought for the day’ on it. During my last stay one of these thoughts got me thinking about customer service and loyalty. It was –

“The only way to have a friend is to be one” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This got me thinking that “The only way to have loyal customers is to be loyal to them”. But that’s not the way most organisations approach it. They see loyalty as a one sided thing and focus on what they can do to make customers loyal to them, but give little or attention to what they could do to show how loyal they are to their customers.

I’m also reminded of one of Stephen Covey’s 7 habits, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. This too reflects the theme of give first to receive later. So I think I’m going to create my own First Rule of Loyalty, which is –

‘First demonstrate loyalty to customers; then seek ways to earn it back.’

At MyJones soda, you upload your own picture to go on the label, suggest recipes and write your own blurb on the back of the label. Then they deliver it to you in 12-packs.

In Canada, it’s now the second largets drinks company after Coke, according to Peter Fisk.

Their most popular flavour? Turkey and gravy soda. You can order a whole Thanksgiving or Xmas meal in soda version, in fact, including cranberry soda to mimic the side order of cranberries with your turkey. It’s one of the best-selling Thanksgiving gifts in North America.

Co-creation with customers…call it what you will. With MyJones soda and the growth of ‘design your own’ t-shirt websites that follow a similar pattern, the world of branding is now very different from how it used to be.