Author Archives: Shep Hyken

About Shep Hyken

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times, bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

We Are in an Employee Experience Recession

2 Replies

We Are in an Employee Experience Recession

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

The title of this article is very similar to the title of the first chapter of John DiJulius and David Murray’s latest book, The Employee Experience Revolution. As the world emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic, many employees realized what made them happy—and unhappy. The result was that many companies experienced The Great Resignation, as employees left their current employers hoping for something better.

Some companies have struggled to replace employees. Many claim there is a shortage of workers. I’ll argue that a shortage of workers isn’t the problem. There is a shortage of workers for that specific company. Why? They haven’t created the employee experience that makes employees want to stay. For example, one of my favorite restaurants has the same employees today as it did pre-pandemic. But the restaurant across the street has struggled to get good people to stay. The reason is simple—and it’s not the food. It’s the management/ownership.

Just as you want your customers to come back, you want your employees to come back. That’s why the employee experience must be in alignment with the customer experience. For years, I’ve preached the Employee Golden Rule, which is to do unto your employees as you want done unto your customers. You can’t treat employees harshly and expect them to go out and be nice to customers. Incongruent behavior can eventually result in a company’s version of The Great Resignation.

I had a chance to interview John DiJulius for an episode of Amazing Business Radio to talk about his new book. I’m so in alignment with his ideas that I thought it was an interview with myself. Below are five of his concepts (in bold), followed by my commentary.

  1. There is not a labor shortage. There is a turnover crisis. As mentioned above in the restaurant example, two restaurants on opposite sides of the street have completely different labor experiences. One has kept its core group of employees. The other can’t keep employees. It’s not a labor shortage. As DiJulius points out, “I don’t think there are fewer human beings walking planet Earth than there were five years ago.” It’s all a turnover problem.
  2. Because some companies struggle to keep people, they hire almost anyone. When many employees leave, some companies are too quick to hire. Desperation can cause companies to hire too quickly, which means they may get the wrong people. What’s worse, according to DiJulius, is that “Companies look the other way on poor performers and people with bad attitudes because they need to replace so many employees.”
  3. Your employees are the average of the five people they work closest to. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn is often credited with saying, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” DiJulius says this is the same in a company, but there’s a difference. In your personal life, you choose your friends. At work, you don’t get a choice. If you put a superstar in the midst of a group of underachievers, you shouldn’t be surprised if your expectations aren’t met.
  4. The employee experience starts with the recruitment experience. DiJulius believes that everything should be an experience. That includes your recruiting, hiring and on-boarding process. Today we are in an “employees’ market.” Candidates can demand more money and benefits. But what if you created an experience that transcended a paycheck? Yes, we need to pay a fair wage, but if the experience of working at a company is strong enough, employees will factor that into their decision to come and work for you. I summarize this concept by asking, “Do you want an employee working for a paycheck or working for the company?”
  5. Build a moat around your rock stars. Just as you work to attract and keep your customers, you should focus similar efforts on hiring the right employees and keeping them. So what are you doing to ensure that after 90 days, your employees think, “This is where I belong”? What experience are you creating that would have them turn down offers from others? DiJulius says, “This is the moat you build around your employees.”

How do we beat the Employee Experience Recession? Cultivate an engaging experience — an appealing and supportive work environment that extends beyond competitive salaries. Foster a culture in which employees feel valued and are an integral part of the organization. Just like you create an experience that gets customers to return, you must prioritize building a workplace where employees are inspired to sign on, come back, and not leave.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Don’t Throw Teammates Under the Bus

Leave a reply

Don't Throw Teammates Under the Bus

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

I couldn’t hold back. I told an employee to stop complaining about her fellow employees in front of us, her customers. Here’s the story.

My wife and I were at a restaurant. The server seemed pleasant and professional, but as our food was delivered, we saw a different side of her. There was a mistake in the order. The side dishes we received were not the ones we chose. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. She could either take our meals back to the kitchen or let us keep our meals and bring out the side dishes we ordered. But to the server, it was a big deal.

She started to complain about how this happens “all the time.” She said, “The people in the kitchen don’t read the orders properly. They don’t know what they are doing back there.” She said a few other words that insulted her coworkers, but I stopped her and said as nicely as I could, “I’m sorry you’re frustrated with the team in the kitchen, but you really shouldn’t complain about them to us.”

Customer service is a team sport. There are others who support you and those whom you support. Sometimes, things go wrong, and they need to be fixed. Often, the person the customer is talking to isn’t at fault, but that doesn’t mean they can’t own some responsibility and represent the company and its employees in the best light.

Blame Game Cartoon from Shep Hyken

I thought about how a company can avoid an employee “throwing other employees under the bus” and came up with a number of ideas to mitigate or eliminate this from happening. Here are three of them to get you thinking:

  1. Emphasize the Team: Encourage employees to use the word “we” instead of “they.” The right vocabulary can support the idea of a team effort in taking care of customers.
  2. Teach Accountability: It may not be an employee’s fault, but it is now their opportunity to fix the problem. Think about the last time you called a company’s customer support number with a complaint and it was handled perfectly. It wasn’t the customer support agent’s fault, but they owned the problem and solved it.
  3. Recognize Employees Who Support the Company and Employees When Mistakes Are Made: Praise employees who handle mistakes properly and uphold the dignity of their coworkers in front of customers. You can use the example for both recognition and a teaching opportunity for others.

When mistakes occur in the workplace, especially in customer-facing roles, the manner in which employees manage these situations can impact a customer’s perception of the business. Everyone must remember their Awesome Responsibility, which is that at any given time, one employee interacting with a customer represents all other employees.

Image Credits: Pexels, Shep Hyken

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

The State of Customer Experience and the Contact Center

Leave a reply

The State of Customer Experience and the Contact Center

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Oh, what a difference a year makes. A few months ago I traveled to Las Vegas to attend the Customer Contact Week (CCW), the largest conference and trade show in the contact center industry. For the past several years, the big discussion has centered on artificial intelligence (AI), and that continues, but Customer Experience (CX) is also moving into the spotlight. AI and natural language models can give customers an almost human-like experience when they have a question or complaint. However, no surprise, some companies do it better than others.

First, all the hype around AI is not new. AI has been in our lives for decades, just at a much simpler level. How do you think Outlook and other email companies recognize that an email is spam and belongs in the junk/spam folder? Of course, it’s not 100% perfect, and neither are today’s best AI programs.

Many of us use Siri and Alexa. That’s AI. And as simple as that is, it’s obviously more sophisticated when you apply it to customer support and CX.

Let’s go back 10 years ago when I attended the IBM Watson conference in Las Vegas. The big hype then was around AI. There were some incredible cases of AI changing customer service, sales and marketing, not to mention automated processes. One of the demonstrations during the general session showcased AI’s stunning capability. Here’s what I saw:

A customer called the contact center. While the customer service agent listened to the customer, the computer (fueled by AI) listened to the conversation and fed the agent answers without the agent typing the questions. In addition, the computer informed the agent how long the customer had been doing business with the company, how often they made purchases, what products they had bought and more. The computer also compared this customer to others who had the same questions and suggested the agent answer those questions. Even though the customer didn’t yet know to ask them, at some point in the future, they would surely be calling back to do so.

That demonstration was a preview of what we have today. One big difference is that implementing that type of solution back then could have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more than a million. Today, that technology is affordable to almost any company, costing a fraction of what it cost back then (as in just a few thousand dollars).

Voice Technology Gets Better

Less than two years ago, ChatGPT was introduced to the world. Similar technologies have been developed. The capability continues to improve at an incredibly rapid pace. The response from an AI-fueled chatbot is lightning fast. Now, the technology is moving to voice. Rather than type a question for the chatbot, you talk, and it responds in a human-like voice. While voice technology has existed for years, it’s never been this good. Google introduced voice technology that seemed almost human-like. The operative word here is almost. As good as it was, people could still sense they weren’t talking to a human. Today, the best systems are human-like, not almost human-like. Think Alexa and Siri on steroids.

Foreign Accents Are Disappearing

We’ve all experienced calling customer support, and an offshore customer service agent with a heavy accent answers the call. Sometimes, it’s nearly impossible to understand the agent. New technologies are neutralizing accents. A year ago, the software sounded a little “digital.” Today, it sounds almost perfect.

Why Customers Struggle with AI and Other Self-Service Solutions

As far as these technologies have come, customers still struggle to accept them. Our customer service research (sponsored by RingCentral) found that 63% of customers are frustrated by self-service options, such as ChatGPT and similar technologies. Furthermore, 56% of customers admit to being scared of these technologies. Even though 32% of the customers surveyed said they had successfully resolved a customer service issue using AI or ChatGPT-type technologies, it’s not their top preference as 70% still choose the phone as their first level of support. Inconsistency is part of the problem. Some companies still use old technology. The result is that the customer experience varies from company to company. In other words, customers don’t know whether the next time they experience an AI solution if it will be good or not. Inconsistency destroys trust and confidence.

Companies Are Investing in Creating a Better CX

I’ve never been more excited about customer service, CX and the contact center. The main reason is that almost everything about this conference was focused on creating a better experience for the customer. The above examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Companies and brands know what customers want and expect. They know the only way to keep customers is to give them a product that works with an experience they can count on. Price is no longer a barrier as the cost of some of these technologies has dropped to a level that even small companies can afford.

Customer Service Goes Beyond Technology: We Still Need People!

This article focused on the digital experience rather than the traditional human experience. But to nail it for customers, a company can’t invest in just tech. It must also invest in its employees. Even the best technology doesn’t always get the customer what they need, which means the customer will be transferred to a live agent. That agent must be properly trained to deliver the experience that gets customers to say, “I’ll be back.”

Image Credits: Pexels, Shep Hyken

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Training Customers for Self Service

Leave a reply

Training Customers for Self Service

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

More and more, customers are open to using self-service solutions. Our customer experience research shows that while customers might prefer the human touch, some expect digital, self-service solutions. In certain cases, they even demand it. And it’s not just in customer service.

Consider Amazon, the perfect example of a self-service retailer. From researching to purchasing a product, and even in most customer service situations, everything is a self-service experience. Each step of the process is logical and intuitive. For customer service issues, the customer is prompted through a process. Along the way, if the customer still wants a live agent to help, they are able to share their phone number and an agent calls back within a minute. The point is, it’s as easy as can be. The learning curve is minimal and comes from just doing it.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re not Amazon, so getting a customer to use your self-service solutions requires a different technique. Keep in mind that there’s a right way and a wrong way. My friend Lance Gruener, EVP of Customer Experience at MasterCard, knows a thing or two about what great service looks like. In addition to his leadership at one of the largest companies on the planet, he’s president of the advisory board of the contact center industry’s largest association. In a recent board meeting, he shared an excellent example of the right way – and wrong way – to get customers to use self-service.

Not long ago, Lance walked into a store. Other than the employees, he was the only person in the store. He approached an employee to ask for help, but rather than helping, the employee pointed to a kiosk and said, “If you go over there, you can do it yourself.”

Lance, who, like me, is acutely aware of good – and unfortunately bad – customer experiences, resented the unwillingness of the employee to help. So, how should the employee have handled this situation?

Ultimately, the company wants customers to use its self-service solutions. But encouraging customers to do so takes a little tact. For Lance, the employee could have done it for him, then taken him to the kiosk and showed him how to do it the next time.

I love this approach. First, take care of the customer and then train them for next time. Or, train the customer while you help them. In effect, you’re saying, “Let’s do this together.” Either way, it combines high touch with technology.

In today’s digital world, a balance between technology, including self-service solutions, and the high-touch experience with a live agent is essential. Empowering customers to confidently use your self-service options can increase customer satisfaction ratings while streamlining operations. To do that, it will take time to train customers to use your technology. Success hinges on good technology integrated with personal support to ensure customers feel valued and capable.

Image Credits: Pixabay, Shep Hyken

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Not All Customers Are Worth Doing Business With

1 Reply

Not All Customers Are Worth Doing Business With

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

In some of my customer service speeches, I joke that some customers aren’t worth doing business with. The way I position it in the speech is funny, but in reality, it’s pretty serious. Sometimes, a customer isn’t worth doing business with because they are truly a bad customer. The result could be choosing to say, “Goodbye,” and sending them to the competition.

While there are many reasons you might end your relationship with a customer, I came up with six obvious ones to get you thinking:

  1. Customers who repeatedly return products. This is often the result of a liberal return policy that some customers abuse. Repeated returns cost money – sometimes more than the profit from the sale.
  2. Customers who make unwarranted complaints about service. You’ve heard the recording: “These calls are recorded for quality assurance.” Not only are recorded calls great for training, but they can also become evidence of a customer who has an unwarranted complaint about the company’s customer service – or any other situation.
  3. Customers who demand unreasonable solutions to problems. If the customer’s demands are unreasonable and they won’t accept the solutions or compensation an employee is offering, it may be time to let them go.
  4. Customers who take up too much time. For example, customers who repeatedly send back products, which takes up too much time and costs the company money.
  5. Customers who are argumentative. Some customers will argue, and nothing will make them happy. When they realize you are about to “fire” them as a customer, they sometimes recognize that they are being unreasonable. But, when they don’t, it’s time to consider saying, “Goodbye.”
  6. Customers who are abusive toward employees. This is more than an argumentative customer – it is taking rude and argumentative to another level. The customer curses, insults or threatens the employee. While we always want to be polite to our customers, sometimes it’s okay to politely transfer them to a manager or, if empowered to do so, politely say goodbye and hang up.

Bad Customer Cartoon from Shep Hyken

Keep in mind that it’s our job to take a negative event or abusive customer and turn the situation around. Another way of saying it is to turn rants into raves. Yet, in some cases – hopefully very few – the customer may truly not be worth doing business with … today. That could change in the future. Keep that in mind. Remember one of my favorite sayings:

The customer is not always right, but they are always the customer.

Consider that saying before slamming the door on an abusive customer. If you feel it can’t be worked out – today – close the door quietly, but consider leaving it open, ever-so-slightly, just in case they realize the error of their ways. Maybe they will come back, apologize, and become a great customer – one that is well worth doing business with!

Image Credits: Pexels, Shep Hyken

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Creating Long-Term Customer Loyalty

Leave a reply

Creating Long-Term Customer Loyalty

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Many years ago, I sold a home. My real estate agent made a value proposition for me. If I hired her to sell my home, I could walk out of the house and never come back. She would manage everything related to maintaining the home and keeping it “showroom ready.” That included lawn care, cleaning and much more. If anything broke, she would take care of. If a painter needed to touch up a wall, she would hire “her painter.” Other than showing up at the closing to sign papers, my only responsibility would be to reimburse her for any expenses she incurred.

She explained that she had a network of preferred vendors who gave her preferential pricing, and she would pass only the actual costs onto me. In addition to her stellar reputation, what she promised to do—make selling my house easy and hassle-free—was the reason I hired her.

At the time, I wondered, “Why don’t other real estate agents do this?” Another question was, “Why don’t more businesses, regardless of the industry they are in, do this?”

It turns out there are people, companies and brands that do. However, many struggle to put together a program like this and find out it’s harder than they thought. Furthermore, what if a company could profit from these recommendations and referrals? What if the referrer received a commission or finder’s fee for recommending the right vendor?

Meet Mikhail Naumov, the founder and CEO of Paylode, a company that helps his clients do exactly what my real estate agent did for me. Naumov says, “If you’re a car company, you’re selling cars. If you’re a pet adoption agency, you’re helping people adopt a new puppy. For the most part, that’s where your job begins and ends. However, the moment the customer buys a car or adopts a puppy, they suddenly have a dozen other problems or pain points they now must solve due to the purchase.”

Naumov’s version of my real estate agent story is that he moved from California to Miami, rented an apartment, and the moment he signed the lease, he thought, “I now need to find renter’s insurance, moving trucks, a storage unit, furniture, appliances, food and more.” His entrepreneurial mind kicked in and he realized there was an opportunity to help apartment rental companies (and now companies across many other industries, including travel, hospitality, and insurance) create a system to take care of their customers’ secondary and tertiary needs. His company, Paylode, was born.

Paylode helps its clients find companies and vendors that their customers need. Sometimes the clients get a referral fee. They typically negotiate discounts that get their customers better rates, and even with the referral fees, the customer still saves money.

While this offers Paylode’s clients an alternative revenue stream by monetizing the products and services they recommend, Naumov quickly realized that it was not the most important reason. The No. 1 reason is making the client’s life easier by helping them with what they need, related to but outside of what their actual business does. This ultimately creates a better customer experience, which in turn drives core business metrics (i.e., retention, engagement, LTV, repeat purchase, and more).

In a sense, the Paylode program is like offering a perk to the customer. Naumov says, “We live in an incentive economy.” Customers love to be rewarded with a perk for doing business with a company. That perk could be, as mentioned, a negotiated discount with a secondary business. But what if you took that further and offered other perks? For example, an apartment rental company could offer six months of free internet with popular streaming channels like MAX and AppleTV. A perk like that becomes an incentive behind a customer’s buying decision, which is why Naumov has named this feature of his platform “Paylode Boost,” focusing on a perk that incentivizes a customer to take a desired action, or choose one company over another.

Companies and brands spend most of their time focused on their own business. Naumov says they have tunnel vision and makes the case for companies from all industries—both B2C and B2B—to step outside of that tunnel and think about their customers’ needs beyond the core product or service they offer. It starts by asking the question, “What new problems show up in my customers’ lives as a consequence of buying from me?”

Sit down with your team and work out the answer, and consider Naumov’s suggestion to “Help customers solve those secondary and tertiary problems in a way that creates loyalty, engagement and gratitude from your customers for life.”

Image Credits: Unsplash

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Change Requires Work and Choice

Leave a reply

Change Requires Work and Choice

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

At the end of the CEO’s speech to his employees, he said, “And one other thing, we want to deliver better customer service.” Then he walked off stage.

Delivering better customer service is a good idea, but just saying you want to do so will not make it happen. Most likely, it will remain just a good idea, because, without the right implementation, the idea will never come to anything. Nothing will change.

A big part of my business is serving as a keynote speaker on customer service and CX for all kinds of companies and organizations. I always ask, “Why is this topic important to you and this audience?” Most of the time, clients have a good answer, but occasionally, I hear something like, “We have terrible customer service, and we need someone like you to come in and share what we can do to be better.”

Trying not to sound flippant, I ask, “So you think that having me or someone like me do a one-hour speech is going to fix that?”

This leads to a bigger discussion about the company’s desire to change and the resources – time, talent, and dollars – it requires to make that happen. I then continue with a few more questions:

  1. What makes you think you need help with your customer service or CX?
  2. What would happen if you continued to do what you do and didn’t make a change?
  3. What does success look like, and how quickly do you want to see results?

The answers to these questions are the fuel needed to make the choice to change an easy one.

Then, there is another series of questions to determine the investment they are willing to make to carry out this choice to change. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take training, which is about talent. And then there are the dollars. And one final choice must be made, and it may be the most important of all. Will the leadership get behind the choice to change?

To summarize, the choice to change, especially in customer service and/or CX, is more than a verbal commitment. It requires substantial and sustained effort backed by resources and leadership support. Simply expressing the desire for improvement is not enough. Real change demands actionable plans and the alignment of time, talent, and investment. Companies must determine their current service levels, define success, and commit to the necessary steps and time to achieve it.

One more question: Are you ready to invest in a future where exceptional service is not just an aspiration but a reality? Act now! Your customers and your business can’t afford to wait.

Image Credits: Pexels, Shep Hyken

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Airlines Are Soaring to New Heights in Passenger Satisfaction

Leave a reply

Airlines Are Soaring to New Heights in Passenger Satisfaction

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

There’s good news for those who fly the friendly skies. The experience is getting better.

If you think about it, airlines have a simple product experience. It’s a plane that moves people. Safety is the number one priority. Beyond that, get the passengers to the destination on time. Passengers have choices in airlines. Some are more cost-efficient, such as Frontier and Spirit; or for more money, others, like American and Delta, offer higher service levels, such as first-class cabins. The passenger gets to choose.

Beyond the amenities of the major airlines, one of the most important criteria for customer satisfaction is on-time performance. Not long ago, the public’s confidence in the airlines’ ability to get people to their destinations on time was so low that I joked, “You can treat passengers terribly, but just get them to their destinations safely and on time, and they will fly you again and again.”

Yes, it’s a joke until you are the one experiencing an airline’s electronic breakdown or you’re on the wrong side of a bad storm. Consider that on-time performance can be impacted by three main factors: weather, mechanical issues and operational execution.

Safety is first, and bad weather is a legitimate reason for delays and cancellations. Mechanical issues also fall into that category. Passengers should be happy when an airline finds out about a mechanical issue while the plane is on the ground rather than in the air. However, operational execution is not a good excuse for delays and cancellations. This is what passengers are paying for. For example, a plane that lands on time but ends up delayed because there wasn’t an open gate or a ground crew available to bring the plane in and open the doors is frustrating and stressful to passengers trying to make a connection.

Good News

Aviation analytics company Cirium’s annual On-Time Performance Review has tracked on-time performance for over 15 years. In 2023, the average on-time performance for North American airlines was 74.45%. That means one out of every four flights was either delayed or canceled.

Certain airlines have a better track record than others. In North America, Delta (84.72%), Alaska Airlines (82.25%), American (80.61%) and United (80.04%) are the top on-time performers. Delta and American Airlines also ranked in the top 10 of all global airlines.

More Good News

During the pandemic, airline travel dropped to incredible lows. The return of people flying for vacation and business travel indicated that the pandemic was in the rearview mirror. However, the industry struggled as it worked out how to safely bring back employees and put planes back in the air. But that, too, is in the rearview mirror.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the airlines’ customer satisfaction levels are at an all-time high. Passengers are rating airlines high for experiences such as check-in, boarding, cabin cleanliness and general courteous customer service. Forrest Morgeson, associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and research emeritus at the ACSI, says, “Airline customer satisfaction has climbed to new heights, reaching scores not seen even before the pandemic disrupted travel.”

A Brighter Horizon for Air Travel

While airlines offer a straightforward service—a safe and on-time flight—there is plenty that happens behind the scenes to make an airline run smoothly. What looks simple on the surface is actually very complicated. Safety, maintenance, scheduling, weather patterns, proper staffing and much more go into running a successful airline. Outside of weather and mechanical issues, operational execution is expected and is essential to maintaining the customer’s confidence in the airline.

Data from Cirium’s annual On-Time Performance Review and the recent results from the ACSI indicate that the airlines are on track. Ongoing improvements in airline customer service and operational efficiency show that the airlines are doing their best to provide a better experience, and exercising caution for weather and maintenance issues continues to make airlines one of the safest ways to travel.

Image Credits: misterinnovation.com, Delta Airlines

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

The Magic of Starting with Yes

Leave a reply

The Magic of Starting with Yes

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

It’s time to revisit the idea of avoiding the word “no,” but this time, I want to approach it from a different angle. First, let me tell you about my friend Dr. Nido Qubein, a devoted husband and father, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, president of High Point University, and mentor to many, who came to this country when he was 17 with little more than $50 to his name. Almost 50 years ago, he attended High Point University, never dreaming that one day he would be president of the institution, a position he accepted in 2005.

Since that time, there has been incredible growth at HPU. In his first year, the university had about 1,400 students enrolled on the 91-acre campus. Today, there are almost 6,000 students, including 623 graduate students. The campus has grown to more than 500 acres, includes 128 buildings, and is considered an elite university.

If you Google “Nido Qubein,” you will see a list of accomplishments that give insight into this man’s extraordinary career. As mentioned, he is a mentor to many, and even as a friend, I am among those who consider him a mentor. I’ve learned much from his willingness to share the lessons he learned from his successes, and today, I want to share a simple lesson we might all want to consider, which has to do with the word no.

If you’ve been following my work, you know I’ve written several articles about avoiding the word no. Christine Trippi and Cameron Mitchell have been featured in The Shepard Letter and in my videos discussing the topic. This time, I give you Nido’s perspective, and even though he’s not talking about customer service or CX, it ties in perfectly.

Nido recognizes that when someone new steps into a leadership role in any type of organization, authenticity and listening skills are of the utmost importance. People can be skeptical. He says, “I always start with a yes. It doesn’t always end that way after we’ve done the study, but a lot of people start with no.”

I love this idea. When our customers ask us for something or they have an issue, starting on a positive note, such as finding a way to use the word yes from the start can help guide the conversation in the right direction. This is what it looks like:

  • “Yes, I understand.”
  • “Yes, that’s a great idea worth considering.”
  • “Yes, you do have a problem, so let’s see what we can do about it.”
  • “Yes, that is a possibility. Let’s look at the situation more closely.”

Nido’s simple leadership lesson is also a powerful customer service lesson. When a customer comes to you with a problem or issue, you are in a leadership position. You are empowered with authority to help the customer. Saying yes is not about giving in. It’s about using the right word at the right time to create a better customer experience.

Image Credits: Pexels

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Customer Service Makes You Money

Leave a reply

Customer Service Makes You Money

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Necessity is the mother of invention. In 2003, Marton Anka, the founder of LogMeIn, now GoTo, spent three hours a day in Budapest crossing a bridge between Buda and Pest, the two halves of Hungary’s capital. He hated the “downtime,” so he invented remote access to a server so he could log in from anywhere—hence, the name of the company, LogMeIn.

Over time, the company expanded its offerings, had a few mergers and acquisitions and ultimately became GoTo, a company that makes IT management, support and business communications easy. Many of you reading this article may be familiar with GoTo Webinar and GoTo Meeting. These communication products (and others) have developed into a company focused on customer communication tools, phone systems, contact center platforms and engagement tools such as web chat, SMS communications, social media and more.

That’s the backdrop of my Amazing Business Radio interview with Joseph Walsh, vice president of product marketing at GoTo. We focused on several important concepts for CX leaders to consider as customer service continues to evolve and become one of the most powerful growth engines that fosters repeat business and customer loyalty. Below are the main points, followed by my comments:

  • The entire company must work in tandem with the customer support department. The old term silo came to mind. Many companies still have departments that operate almost autonomously, in silos, without regard to the other departments. Imagine the power a customer support agent working with a customer would have if they could easily reach out to someone in product development, accounting or sales in real time to get answers to their customer’s questions. Walsh says, “You need fast access to subject matter experts in other parts of the company.” This eliminates having to call the customer back and cuts down on the time it takes to answer customers’ questions and resolve their issues.

There are four stages of contact centers. Walsh talked about the four stages/lifecycle of a typical contact center. For an organization to understand where it is today, it must see where it fits into the different stages of contact centers, which are:

    1. Initiate Conversations: This is the traditional contact center. It’s where most companies start to build and expand their customer support department. They prepare to field multiple calls, answer emails, etc., often using basic/standard phone systems and computers to get started. People are trained with scripts, and while a good start, it’s still basic at best.
    2. Collaboration: This goes back to Walsh’s first point about collaborating with experts and departments throughout the company. On the customer’s first (and hopefully only) call, the agent can reach out to the appropriate people to get the right answers and convey that information to the customer for a much better experience.
    3. Digital Transformation: Walsh used the word omnichannel to describe how different communication channels work together seamlessly. A customer may start with a social media post to ask for help. At some point, they may be texting. That’s followed up with a phone conversation. But what makes this special is that it is a progressive conversation using these different communication platforms versus multiple interactions in which the customer must start over and repeat the story or problem at every interaction. Walsh says, “At this stage, the people and companies are beginning to master the craft of customer experience.”
    4. Automate and accelerate: This is where the modern contact center has evolved. Most of the first three stages of the lifecycle merge with modern technology and allow customers to employ self-service, work out problems and answer questions on their own. Automated processes and AI create a better experience by reducing and/or eliminating mundane, repetitive tasks. Customers and employees are happy.

    Customer service becomes a growth opportunity. It surprises me that some business leaders still view customer service as a cost center. The new way of looking at CX is that it is a revenue generator that retains customers and grows business. Walsh said, “The more evolved, digitally powered contact center is a growth center for achieving higher customer service scores that drive repeat customers and give the customer such a happy experience that they’re not concerned about price.” This powerful statement can be backed up with data proving customer service doesn’t cost. It pays!

    In a competitive marketplace, companies must prioritize exceptional customer experiences to thrive. By embracing collaboration, digital transformation and automation, companies and brands can turn customer service from a cost center into a growth engine. As Walsh emphasized, a digitally evolved contact center does more than simply improve service. It also drives loyalty, revenue and growth.

    Image Credits: Pexels

    This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

    Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.