Hmmm. As you approach the agent you
see that her “Next!” was premature. So
you stand there, waiting for her to finish
the previous transaction. Finally she
finishes keyboarding, looks at you, and
says curtly:
“Yes?”
You answer:
“My plans have changed. Would it be
possible to exchange this ticket so I can
fly to Washington Dulles?”
“Uh huh…”
She takes your ID, gives you your
boarding pass – and never looks up at you.
“Next!”
You take the boarding pass, go through
security, get on the plane and land safely
and on time at your destination. So, you
got a perfect product: a product that
would appear, if anyone charted it out, to
be 100 per cent free of defects. But do you
feel satisfied? Of course not.
OK. Now let’s change the script. Same
airport, same maze, same line of people
ahead of you in the maze. Again, you
eventually make it to the front of the line,
where you quietly wait for an agent to call
on you.
“May I help the next person in line, please?”
You step forward.
“Good morning sir. Thank you for your
patience. How are you today?”
“Not bad at all, thanks, considering, and
how are you?”
“Just fabulous. How may I assist you today?”
“My plans have changed and I need to get
on a flight to Washington Dulles.”
“It’ll be my pleasure. I hear the weather isn’t
actually too bad in the D.C. area this weekend.
Are you visiting family for Thanksgiving?”
“No, it’s just business. But I’ll be flying
back right afterward and will get home for
the holiday.”
She checks ID and hands you your
boarding pass.
“Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
“No, I think that’s all.”
“Well then, have a splendid day.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Thank you for flying with us.”
How was this interaction? It was great,
right? Interactions like this, with only
a single caring, friendly employee, can
make us feel good about doing business
with an entire company.
Now, you get through the long security
line and to the gate. Only at that point
do you notice your boarding pass says
Dallas, not Dulles. Uh…Now are you
satisfied? Again, no – not with a defective
product or service, no matter how warmly
delivered.
In A Timely Fashion
In our world of iPhones and instant
messaging your customers get to decide
what is and isn’t an appropriate timeline.
A perfect product delivered late by
friendly, caring people is the equivalent
of a defective one.
Customer experiences guide their
expectations, so on-time delivery
standards continue to get tougher all
the time. What your customer today
thinks of as on-time delivery is not only
stricter than what her parents would have
tolerated, it’s stricter than what even her
older sister would have tolerated.
Amazon.com’s tight supply and delivery
chain has single-handedly raised the
timeliness bar in the online world, but
that’s not the end of the story: Their
speedy online delivery has raised offline
expectations as well. In fact, the concept
of special ordering for walk-in customers
is obsolete for most bricks-and-mortar
merchants. If you don’t have it in stock
when a customer walks in, a customer’s
just going to go online and find it for
herself.
This impatience rule can only be
ignored, whether online or off, when a
customer is commissioning something
truly custom, something specially made
by you for her alone, such as fine art,
cabinetry or a gourmet meal. In fact,
for some truly custom items, providing
something too quickly can be equated by
customers with low quality or prefab
work. The trick here is the same: Learn
your own customer’s definition of “on
time” and obey that definition – not your
own.
An Effective Problem Resolution
Process
Service breakdowns and other problems
experienced by customers are crucial
emotional moments in a business
relationship. Therefore, solving these
problems will have an outsized impact
on your success. That’s why you need an
effective problem resolution process.
Effective problem resolution sounds
like a modest goal. But so does reaching
base camp – until you find out the camp
is on Denali. Here’s what’s so tough:
Effective can’t be measured by whether
you have restored the situation to the pre-problem status quo. Effective is measured
by whether you have restored customer
satisfaction.
This can be challenging, but it’s well
worth it. Resolve a service problem
effectively and your customer is more
likely to become loyal than if she’d never
run into a problem in the first place. (On
this point, our studies and practical
experience are 100 per cent conclusive.)
Why is this so? Because until a problem
occurs, the customer doesn’t fully get to
see us strut our service. Of course, we
would never recommend that you make
mistakes on purpose so you can engineer
a splendid recovery and win yourself some
client love in the process. But it is a silver
lining to keep in mind when you’re
staring down a problem.
To learn how to deliver anticipatory customer
service, track down a copy of Exceptional Service,
Exceptional Profit by visiting www.amacombooks.org.
Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The
Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service
Organization. © 2010 Leonardo Inghilleri and
Micah Soloman. All rights reserved. Published by
Amacom Books. www.amacombooks.org.
