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By Shep Hyken
It is one of the most common questions I’m asked in interviews: What’s the difference between customer service and customer experience (also known as CX)? While I’ve written about this before, my original article about customer experience was more about how to create a more interactive experience. The example I used was how Home Shopping Network (HSN) incorporated gamification into the customer experience. It offered games and puzzles on its website. The prize for winning the game or solving the puzzle was in the form of discounts. That’s a great – and even fun – experience, but there is much more to it than that. First, a little history. I remember the term customer experience being used as a fancy phrase to describe customer service. Many years ago, that’s all it was. Some smart person was trying to give a facelift to the term customer service. Not long after that, however, other smart people started using the term customer experience to describe every interaction with a company. That included customer service and much more. This is where it confuses some people. Customer service is part of customer experience, but customer experience goes to a much broader level. Some of the obvious experiences include navigating a website, reading promotional emails and text messages, watching the brand’s videos and much more. Even opening a package is part of the customer experience. Think about how cool it is to unbox an iPhone or iPad. Back in the day, Steve Jobs was very specific about how he wanted the unboxing of the company’s products to be an amazing CX. Some say that customer service is what happens when the customer experience goes wrong. That’s part of it, but it’s not the whole picture. If you’ve followed my work, you know that customer service is not a department that deals with problems and complaints. It’s a philosophy to be embraced by every employee, from the CEO or owner to the most recently hired. It’s how you interact with people, both your internal and external customers. The customer support department deals with questions, problems and complaints. Of course, their customer service skills must be at the highest level when dealing with unhappy customers and solving problems. So, a short definition of customer service is all of the interactions that customers have with the people in the company. We can even broaden that to digital interactions, which now include chatbots, interactive experiences on a website and more. Just to emphasize, these interactions include, but go beyond, the interactions for customer support. Customer experience includes customer service – and everything else a customer might experience when doing business with you. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success!
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By Shep Hyken
One of the big concepts we teach in our customer service training programs is the concept of Always. This is the backbone of creating customer amazement. When the customer uses the word always followed by something positive, you are creating a predictable experience, and even more important, you are operating in the zone of amazement. For example, your customers might say:
Notice that these statements are about the interactions customers have with your employees. Often, they are really just one person the customer is interacting with. So, consider the following questions:
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But simple doesn’t mean easy. Let’s talk about what drives the Always experience. It’s really two words: people and process. It starts with the right people, whether they are newly hired or have been with your organization for years. Your people must understand what is expected and what drives the experience you’re trying to provide. Beyond understanding, it takes training – and not just one time. It’s ongoing reinforcement of the goal for the customer experience you want to provide. Training can be just a few minutes each week at a weekly team meeting. Some organizations have daily meetings where customer service and experience are brought up, even if just for two or three minutes. The point is that it is never a distant memory. Then there is the process you provide. While the always statements above mostly apply to the people, you also want to have a good customer-focused process to support it. The journey the customer takes must be easy. Ideally, you want your customer to say, “They are always easy to do business with.” Being easy is baked into the process. So, have a team meeting. Discuss the concept of Always. Discuss your answers to the questions above. The Always concept drives trust, and trust is a big reason why customers come back to do more business with you. Do it right by creating an experience that ensures customers always come back! Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
Here is a stat that’s hard to believe: Forty-eight percent of Americans would rather go to the dentist than call customer support. OUCH! It seems that going to the dentist to get a filling or a root canal is preferred over having to call customer support. This statistic comes straight from the 2021 Achieving Customer Amazement Study we conducted this year. We surveyed more than 1,000 consumers to find out what they loved and hated about customer service. What would make them come back or terminate their relationship with the brand or company? But let’s get back to this stat for a moment. The following horror story has happened to all of us. You spend 10 minutes searching a company’s website for a customer support phone number that you eventually find in tiny print on an obscure page. You make the call and you’re put on hold for an unreasonable amount of time. The hold music is terrible, and they don’t tell you how long it’s going to be. You just wait and wonder. Someone finally answers. You have a hard time understanding them. It may not be an accent that’s hard to understand. It may be that you can hear hundreds of other customer service agents in the background, making it hard to hear the agent you’re talking to. You take the time to tell the agent your name, address, last four digits of your Social Security number, your mother’s maiden name, and the answer to a security question. Then another five minutes explaining your story. The agent keeps saying, “I’m sorry,” so many times that it loses its impact and seems insincere. You hope this is the person to help you, but your dreams are shattered when the agent says, “I’m sorry, that’s not my department.” From there they transfer you to someone they think is better equipped to help you. And, then it starts over! The next agent and the experience is no better than the last. Finally, you ask to speak to a supervisor. Yes, you’ve done that! Admit it! I can keep going, but you get the idea. First, nobody wants to call customer support. They don’t want to have a problem that forces them to do something they hadn’t planned on doing. But it happens, and when it does, you can’t give your customers anything that resembles the experience I just described. So, do you want to know what’s important to customers? Here’s a peek at some of the findings from the ACA study. Customers want:
These are some of the basics! And to most of us, these are common sense. Unfortunately, they aren’t always as common as they should be. But the companies that get it right flourish ahead of the customer service laggards. Read more stats and facts in the 2021 ACA study that will help guide your decisions as you improve your customer service. The information the survey revealed is your motivation to deliver an amazing customer experience. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
“We love our customers, and they obviously love us. They keep coming back, again and again!” Who doesn’t want to be able to say that? And, if that is the case with your organization, let me ask you this question: Do you know why they are coming back? Not to be a “downer,” but we shouldn’t confuse a repeat customer with a loyal customer. They are not the same. Don’t get me wrong, I love repeat customers, and we absolutely want them. Repeat customers are very desirable. I write about this topic in my latest book, I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again. As a business, you should do everything you can do to get the customer to come back. However, as I explain in the book, just because they do come back, that doesn’t mean they are loyal. You have to understand the why behind the repeat business. For example, let’s say you own a retail store. There are a number of reasons customers might come back. Ideally, it’s related to an emotional connection that causes them to want to come back to you and not the competition. Maybe they love your unique merchandise. Maybe they love your salespeople. Perhaps there is a cause or charity you support. These are reasons that customers could be emotionally connected to you. But, maybe it’s because of your location or low prices. If the customer keeps coming back because of a convenient location, the moment a competitor opens a store that’s more convenient, the customer may go there instead. It’s the same with price. If you promise low prices, and that’s what is driving customers to come back, as soon as the competition offers a lower price, you may lose the customer. And you thought they were loyal? They were, but that loyalty was to location and price, not to your business. The point is to recognize the difference between repeat customers and loyal customers. Make sure you understand the why behind what brings that customer back. If it’s something other than an emotional connection that can drive loyalty to your business, work to move that customer from just being a repeat customer to loyalty. I like to refer to repeat customers as gold and loyal customers as sacred. And to emphasize, while customer loyalty is the “holy grail,” there is nothing wrong with going for repeat business. The point is that you must understand why the customer comes back. Once they start coming back, make sure they are coming back for reasons that will keep them from leaving you for your competition. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
Reducing friction is all about creating an easier experience for the customer. In my book, The Convenience Revolution, I identify six ways to create convenience. The first, reducing friction, is tied to all five other principles. And, all of them focus on creating convenience and reducing friction for customers. But how about we look inside our organizations and the way we conduct business internally? Do we think about the friction we cause our employees? What extra work do they do because of antiquated systems and processes? For our outside customers, when we reduce friction, they find it easier to do business with us. Internally, when we reduce friction for employees, we make it easier for them to do their jobs, which has a direct impact on the customer. That brings me to an excellent article posted by Josh Linkner, innovation guru, who wrote about how tiny air bubbles led to a potential $28 billion cost savings. Noah Silberschmidt is the founder and CEO of Silverstream Technologies, a company that reduces friction – not for customers, but for large oceangoing ships that move people and cargo through the seas. Apparently, large ships going through water create a lot of friction and drag. Silverstream Technologies has an air lubrication system that reduces friction by blowing tiny bubbles, less than one millimeter in diameter, in front of the ship, creating an “air carpet” for the ship to ride on. This reduces fuel consumption by as much as 10%. If the 50,000 large oceangoing vessels in the sea used this technology, there would be approximately $28 billion in fuel cost savings. That’s a lot of money – and a lot of bubbles! Here’s the Point We use convenience to create a better customer experience. We reduce friction by eliminating unnecessary effort. But, convenience and lower friction need to go beyond the customer experience. I really encourage you to look at the internal side of what you do. What friction can be eliminated for your employees, making it easier for them to do their jobs? What processes could be updated to save time and effort? Freeing up employees from cumbersome processes, systems and operations has a positive impact on many levels. In some cases, it eliminates frustrating tasks. It can save time – and time is money! It makes employees more productive, and a byproduct of feeling productive is fulfillment. That means employees are happier, and subsequently more engaged in their jobs and with customers. And, happiness means less employee turnover. So, your innovation may not be blasting bubbles into the ocean, but it has the same impact. It makes your company and employees more efficient and potentially saves you money. And, who doesn’t want that? Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
You may or may not know that I’m a magician. Some of you may know that I’m also a musician. But today I want to talk about being a magician. Growing up throughout high school and college I performed at parties, corporate events and comedy clubs. That experience in show business gave me the stage chops to start my business as a professional speaker. I share this background to give you some context. Many of my friends are professional entertainers. A friend I’ve known for years is Jeff McBride, an amazing magician who performs throughout the world and resides in Las Vegas. I was reading an article by Jeff in a magic magazine. He was writing about the business of a magic show, but his concept applies to business in general. His comment was, “The show starts when the phone rings.” He was referring to clients who call him for private engagements. The point he was making was that the customer experience begins the moment the customer connects with you, not when they see you on stage or in person. The way the phone is answered is really your opening act, and the manner in which you conduct yourself from that point forward, all the way up to taking the stage, is part of the overall show experience for the client. I’ll also add that every interaction that comes after the performance on stage is part of the show. We can call that the encore. It’s the same in business. Our customers may find us as the result of a Google search or a recommendation from a friend or colleague. They land on our website. Look around and research. They may call us or visit us. At some point, they move from thinking of doing business with us to actually buying whatever we sell. Depending on what we sell, whether B2B or B2C, the buying cycle may take more than one visit. It could take weeks or months … maybe even longer. So, when does the customer start making the decision to buy? Long before they actually make the purchase. It happens between the moment the customer thinks of you and the time they actually buy. And, it’s probably much earlier in the process than you think. Everything that happens leading up to the sale is part of the customer experience. And, that includes customer service. Most people think service happens after the sale. The reality is that every interaction leading up to and after the sale is part of service and experience. That first time the customer lands on your website or makes a phone call – that’s the opening act. From that point, the show has started. In business, the show never ends. There’s the follow-up, customer support and repeat business. For some, this is common sense, so consider this a reminder. For those who haven’t thought this way, this could be an epiphany. So, here’s to strong opening acts, standing ovations and encores that get your customers to come back again and again! Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
Here’s a question, and I think I know the answer: Would you do business with an airline that didn’t offer the ability to book a ticket online, check-in online, and get your boarding pass online? Assuming that every other airline has these self-service digital options, what if one didn’t? Would you be willing to call for a reservation, wait on hold, pull out your credit card to verbally give your payment information, and stand in line at the ticket counter to check in on the day of departure? Would you choose to fly with this airline over the others? I feel I can safely say the answer is, “No!” Assuming everything is comparable among all airlines – the planes are similar, the seats are the same and the pricing is competitive – you would almost certainly not choose to do business with the old-fashioned airline, for one simple reason: The digital experience, at least as it applies to flying, is an easier experience. It’s simple. Easier wins. Faster wins. More convenient wins. If it means using digital to achieve easier, faster, and more convenient, then customers will use a digital channel. The point is, you can’t fight digital. More and more customers are looking for digital and self-service options. Our customer experience research finds that 41% of customers prefer digital first and the phone second. That number increases year after year. Customers prefer a self-service solution on the Internet over calling a company, being put on hold, potentially repeating their story, and more. Easy is better, therefore, in many instances, digital is better. So, back to the original question. The airline that doesn’t make it easy for the customer to do business, and that means using the digital experience, will lose. Metaphorically speaking, you don’t want to be that airline. If you feel as if you’re lagging in the digital world, what can you do to catch up? If you’re already offering your customers digital solutions, what can you do to make them better? Sit down with the team and consider the following questions:
Most companies already have a digital presence. If a website or app makes life easier and more convenient for your customers, they will want to use it. So, don’t let your competition take your customers away from you, simply because you haven’t kept up. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
Here’s a true story shared by a friend and speaking colleague. The short version is that there is a doctor, who is probably a good doctor. But he’s a terrible boss. When a patient – as in: his customer – complains about something, he listens and then goes back to his employees, and in a knee-jerk reaction, he berates and punishes them by taking away their incentives. You can only imagine what that does to the morale of the team. And what happens next? The employees quit, which is understandable. There are plenty of employee surveys that point to the number one reason people quit their jobs. Many people think it’s money, but it is actually due to a lack of appreciation from their boss. It’s okay for a boss to be hard to work for. But the boss who has high expectations can still show appreciation and support employees. Receiving a complaint from a customer doesn’t mean it’s time to turn on your employees. On the contrary, it’s time to sit down and find out why it happened. And here’s the interesting part. It’s usually not the employee’s fault. And it’s not the customer’s fault either. Most often, it’s the process or business system. Here’s a simple example: Let’s make the assumption that the doctor has hired employees who are friendly and competent. The doc is running behind and patients in the reception area are becoming impatient. One of them becomes angry and complains. This doctor doesn’t understand the real reason behind the delays, which are due to overbooking. Instead, he thinks the delays are due to poor management by the front desk personnel. Yet it is the doctor who insists they book – actually overbook – patients back-to-back. When there is a problem, even if it appears to be the employee’s fault, you need to understand why it happened. If it’s related to an employee’s attitude, that is a coachable moment. Managed the right way you’ll get the employee back on track or you’ll quickly learn he or she needs to go to a different position – or another job in another company. If it’s because the employee didn’t know what to do, then it’s simply a function of training, which is tied to your business system or process. If employees aren’t properly onboarded and trained for their jobs, you can’t expect them to perform at their best. Or maybe it’s just a bad process or system that needs to be fixed. This is something that needs to be discussed, managed and corrected. And here’s the interesting part of all of this. The late Dr. W. Edwards Deming, renowned professor, statistician and author, stated that 94% of problems are the fault of the system. People can’t perform better than the system allows. So, in most cases, it’s not the people. It’s the system or process. If you work together with your people, you can focus your efforts on fixing what’s broken. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
I was recently asked what three traits I think are most important for someone in customer service to have. I’d like to broaden the topic to anyone dealing with someone else’s problem or question, be it a customer or another person inside the organization, also known as an inside customer. My response to the question was quick:
This is the ability to move on and put anything negative that happened in the most recent interaction with a customer behind you – especially if it was negative or contentious. This isn’t easy. I recently interviewed Eric Williams, the chief marketing officer at CallMiner, who said that it could take a professional customer support agent up to 40 minutes to bounce back after a call in which the customer may have been angry, used foul language or even made derogatory comments or racial slurs. Forty minutes seems like a long time, and I’m not disagreeing, but even if it was just four minutes, that means that the next customer is going to get the “fallout” from the previous call. Is this support agent going to be less amazing because of a negative or contentious previous call? I believe that the best agents move on. They put a negative call behind them. The next customer – or customers – never know if the agent just had a bad call, let alone a bad day. That brings us to the goldfish. I was watching the TV series Ted Lasso, which is about a professional soccer team that gets a new coach who has never played soccer before. He admits to that the first time he meets with the team. He also tells them that he doesn’t have to play soccer to be a good coach. One of his coachable moments came after a member of his team made a really bad play. He talked about the happiest animal in the world. Actually, it was a fish: a goldfish. The reason why? Because its memory lasts 10 seconds. My research claims as short as three seconds, but that’s not the point. Coach Lasso’s advice to his player after that bad play was to be a goldfish. In other words, put it behind you and move on. That’s what resilience is. You don’t have to have a short memory, but you have to be able and willing to put negative emotions behind you and move on. That’s what the best do in customer service, on the athletic field, and for that matter, in life. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Shep Hyken
Little successes added together make for large success down the road. Small successes add up. To put it in baseball terms, you don’t need to hit a home run every time it’s your turn at bat. So, here’s the question to consider: What small change will enhance the experience for the customer, even if it is just by 1%? My friend and client, Jason Bradshaw of Volkswagen in Australia, was tasked with improving the customer experience for the VW dealerships. Within two years he had made big strides. It didn’t happen with big sweeping changes. It happened with little ones. Even “tiny” ones that he referred to as 1% differences. Back to my original question – what small changes can you make? The way to make small changes isn’t complicated. Here are four steps to help you get there.
Follow these simple steps and start to improve your customer service, even if it’s just by 1%! Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! |
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