Star Concepts

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*Stay Ahead

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Recently I contacted Verizon Superpages on behalf of my client to determine the viability of maintaining an advertising listing. To give you some background, my client has been using Superpages for the past year with practically no idea of the listing's effectiveness. No one from Superpages has ever called them to review click-through rates, hits, or anything of the sort.

The Account rep who initially sold my client the advertising is no longer with the company. So, I was kicked up to the "manager" for handling. While she was very pleasant, she really missed the boat in terms of sales and service. She never once apologized for my having to track her down after numerous mind numbing calls to various 800 numbers. And, when I let her know I was seriously contemplating the cancellation of the advertising, she suggested she would mail the past six month's results to me (rather than review them on the phone) to illustrate how well we (they) had done. Then, she asked me to call her in four days to ensure I had received the packet of information (she indicated the mailroom sometimes loses the mail. But, she was certain I would get it).

Give me a break!

I constantly preach that you must Stay Ahead of The Customer. It is essential to performing beyond expectation and doing it in a memorable way......hence, it is also a key concept in the Memorable Solutions approach.

This is a clear example of a company having countless opportunities to stay ahead of me and my client, and failing miserably. They knew the contract was expiring, they have all of our contact information, they host our website, they have all of the stats, they have me on the phone... Instead, I have to do all of the work...and in the end make a stupid phone call to make sure their mailroom didn't lose my mail. Good grief.

Needless to say, Verizon Superpages will lose my client's business. But, the really sad thing is that they could have avoided all of this by simply staying ahead of me....and keeping in touch (another key concept to be reviewed at another time).

Front Line Immersion

This might very well be the most important part of the entire Memorable Solutions process. It’s where we separate fact from fiction. Respectively, any reputable service training company (that’s not really what I do. But, it’s close enough for comparison here) should be doing this….but, they traditionally don’t. Here’s what most service training companies provide you:

1. A cursory review of your job descriptions, training manuals, service standards and other written materials.
2. If you pay extra, you might receive a service evaluation, i.e., shopper’s report.
3. A three to four hour presentation to key managers and supervisors on how important service really is, and how they can motivate their employees to give better service. The presentation may include some really boring Powerpoint and will likely have a few jokes mixed in with some interactive “games” to keep people from falling asleep.

That’s not how they should do it! Here’s how I do it.

I ask where you are receiving your worst and best service scores (assuming your measuring service somehow). If there are no measurements, I ask a few people at different levels to guess!
Then, I Immerse myself in the jobs of those areas…I simply take on the role of the employee. Why? I need two forms of feedback in order to properly evaluate and improve service delivery….I need firsthand customer feedback, and firsthand employee feedback. Without it, I might as well just read the job descriptions in my office, and offer theories on how to repair something that might not even be broken.

Example:

If you want to help a pizza restaurant improve their delivery program, saddle up with two or three different delivery employees, and hit the streets. Do that for a few days, and you will know more than the store manager….guaranteed. After the front line immersion, you know what the customers are saying, what the employees are saying, and most importantly, how both are relating to each other.

Now, I can report findings, offer some expert opinions, and guide the company on making changes. You will note, I don’t give the answers. I don’t have them….the managers, supervisors and employees do. It’s my job to show them how and where to find them, how to collaborate on developing them and how to develop systems to monitor them.

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Car Shopping

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Shopping for cars has long been a less than desirable experience, and certainly not one I look forward to every three or four years. And, although I have streamlined and for the most part wrestled control of my buying process away from the car dealer (I use the fax and internet), occasionally I am forced to enter their domain.

We are looking to replace our current Jeep Grand Cherokee with a smaller SUV. We're not buying another Jeep for two reasons: one, it's too big for my wife, and two, I replaced the brakes on it four times in four years with an added customer service struggle each time I had it in the shop at the Jeep dealer.

So, we're looking at Kia Sorrento. We stroll on in to Dulles Motorcars, the closest Kia dealer to us, and after a few minutes on our own in the lot, along comes Chris. He's very polite, nice and not at all overbearing. He didn't ask many questions, other than if we were interested in a car (duh?). While his sales skills were certainly lacking, it was nice not to feel like you were in a pressure cooker to "buy today". He answered our few design and performance questions with relative confidence, and he made some small talk with our baby daughter. We told him this was our first opportunity to look at the Kia, and that we would be buying a car next month. He went to get a brochure....but, they were out. He gave me his card, and wished us a nice day. We left, actually relieved that we weren't armwrestled to buy a car before we left the lot. It was nice. We will probably go back there....probably. But, not definitely.

But....Chris blew it, didn't he. I mean, we are definitely buyers. We gave him clear and certain information about what we wanted and when we wanted it. He received our "permission" to sell to us, and he failed to seize the opportunity. Why...because he can't reach us! He is relying on chance that we enjoyed our initial experience there, that we will find our way back there before going to another dealer (or carmaker altogether) and that once we return to his lot, that he will be there, and that we will still have his card and ask for him. That's way too many if's.....and not a very memorable experience.

Below are some Star Concepts of Memorable Service (with more to come on these as well as others in future posts) which Chris could have used to be more effective:

First.....get permission. He did that.
Second, get to know me. (Ask bunches of questions) He didn't really do that.
Third, stay in touch with me. He can't do that for obvious reasons. And, even if he could, other than sending me a brochure, he doesn't have an introduction to his sales message because he doesn't know me.
Fourth, stay ahead of me. He can't.
Fifth, always exceed my expectations. He may never get the chance.
No Memorable Service here.....no reason to gab about it to all of my friends and colleagues.

Chris could have asked me a simple question: Mr. Chaffin, before you go today, would you have any interest in knowing when the 2005 model arrives, probably within the next month or so? (Also, if he was observant, he recognized we were somewhat price conscious by looking at the standard models vs. the upgrades). So, he could have asked: Would you be interested in knowing when the 2004 models go on sale in order to make room for the 2005's? In either case, I'm not going to say "no". So, now he gets my e-mail address and snail mail address, and bingo, number 3 and 4 are taken care of, and he has a real chance at number 5. Now that he knows it's okay, he will e-mail me, send me a brochure, and maybe even a bag of York peppermint patties (because he saw me chomping on one of those). Now, those actions would be light years beyond any of the other dealers. And, throw in the peppermint patties, or a personalized Baby Einstein DVD for my daughter and he would be in another universe in the realm of car sales. He would have created something Remarkable and Memorable!

Listen to your customer intently, and get engaged with him. It's the only way to make service really work....to your advantage.