My father called Quest to have a new phone installed at the house.

On Monday, as scheduled, the technician came and connected the new line on the outside of the house.  After some time, not knowing they had come, my father checked to see if the line was working and found the main line was not working, but the secondary line (available only in some of the rooms in our house) was now present. 

He called Quest and asked them to return and install the line correctly.  A new visit was scheduled on Thursday. 

On Thursday a technician knocked on the front door to let my father know he had finished re-installing and was leaving.  My father, who is not easily fooled twice, asked him to wait so they could test the line together.  They found once again, the connection was made incorrectly.  They both went outside and the technician quickly discovered the problem, fixed it and went on his way.

What is wrong with both of these customer experiences?

Most of us might say what went wrong was the technicians’ inability to complete their work correctly the first time.   However, when I talked to my father about it, he seemed to understand and accept the inevitability of human error.  What he was having trouble with was the lack of intention to provide a good service.  Both times the technicians were uninterested in the effectiveness of their effort and more interested in moving on to the next task.  The problem in my father’s mind did not seem to be lack of expertise as much as lack of intention.

Interestingly enough, if the right intention had been present, the problem, the costs associated with the second visit and the strain on the customer relationship would have been averted. 

Why then, would Quest not ask their technicians to check with the customer before and after doing the work?  The return on investment is certainly clear.

Intention overpowers errors and inefficiencies - because we are human and we value experiences more than error-free service.

Rudy Vidal

Committed to XCS !

A couple of days ago I traveled for the second time on Southwest Airlines. 
It took the second time to fully understand and appreciate the experience.  I think it wasn’t clear to me the first time because I was accustomed to a certain way of flying.  I had accepted the flying paradigm handed to me over the years. 

On the second trip, I read the airline magazine and came across a farewell article from the airline’s president Colleen Barrett.  In the article she explained Southwest’s customer philosophy and how their success was based on a simple premise, an expectation and requirement of a display of “:Golden Rule Behavior” among and from Southwest Employees -

“Do onto others as you would have others do onto you”.

Once I read the article something seemed to click and I began to see things I had not noticed until then.  Flight attendants were fun, helpful, nice, friendly.  More importantly, passengers were the same.  When the captain announced a weather delay, no one made the usual sarcastic comments or eye-rolling sighs.  In stead there were the inevitable jokes about Chicago and its weather.  The next thing I noticed was that the energy on the flights was less hurried, intense and more  . . .I’ll say it, “loving”.

Southwest is not a high priced airline that can afford great customer service,  in fact, they are the opposite, a low cost airline (one of the few making money).  So, how does that work?

Ms. Barrett, understands it, and I suspect the entire culture does as well.  Customer satisfaction comes from a state of mind.  It comes from a caring spirit that needs no funding, no budget nor gadgets.  Loyalty comes from the emotions we are able to create in our customers when they see that they are cared for, as people.

Most executives with whom I speak regarding Customer Satisfaction mention they would like to work on customer centricity but believe they can’t afford it.  We must convince them all to put away their money and put their hearts out where the customer can see them. 
 
Higher quality of life and higher business benefits are just around the corner, ask Ms. Barrett, or fly Southwest at least twice.

RudyVidal
Committed to XCS !

Yesterday I set out to purchase a car for my father, who just moved to Salt Lake City from Miami (don’t worry dad, the winter is not so bad here . . sigh)

In the interest of fairness and support to our ailing automotive industry I went to a Chevy dealer, in spite of my resent experiences. 

I took some test drives with Christian, a nice young fellow who was very interested in my needs and working hard to address any of my questions, as we drove.  Once we returned, as is expected, I soon met Christian’s manager, who also seemed pleasant and interested.  However, he soon brought up the fact that the currently offered 0% financing was only available until Monday and that I would have to act fast.  He asked me what was keeping me from the purchase and I mentioned that I was hoping to reach $XXX.XX as a monthly payment.  He sent me off on another test drive and mentioned that when we returned, he would do his best to work the numbers so we could reach this goal.  Great, I said, and went off to the next test drive with Christian.

On my return, after some niceties, I asked him “Perhaps we can go inside and see if we can work on those numbers”.  His response, was shocking but not surprising “well, only if you are committed to purchasing the car”.  At that point it became clear that the sales manager was interested in something beyond my best interest; perhaps his time.  I said goodbye.

From there are I went to a couple of dealers.  I purchased a Toyota.  I reached the price point I needed, my dad likes it.  Almost everyone won.

Rudy Vidal
Committed to XCS!

Ed Vallorani’s posting is a great example (see here). 

The key is to understand your customers’ pain points and needs, then its possible.

Committed to XCS !

it sounds easy, but the reality is that you can’t impose a new mindset, or a new culture.
What I find works best in creating a fast transition is to create:

1. Understanding of the logic - Why do we need to change or improve?
2. Provide the vehicles or processes that will carry new action and intention.
3. Create an expectation for results, coupled with effective Key Performance Indicators or metrics.

These three components do create change.

I believe the vast majority of people, given the opportunity, want to do the right thing, want to satisfy customers, treating them as customers should be treated.

However, if they don’t have the process, the information, the empowerment and the expectation from management, don’t expect miracles.

Extreme Customer Satisfaction happens when Management gets a new mindset ! 

(Some related posting to doing it) 1 2

Have you been on either side of this conundrum? It’s amazingly clear how wrong it is, but when you are in the moment, you can be so burdened with tasks (Task Saturation) that if you were a pilot, the plane would go down.

Stop and ask yourself, and allow your team to do the same.  We have to give our staff the empowerment to use their judgement, and then back them up when they do right by it.

The specific scenario today goes like this:  A man walks in the bank, he tells the banker “I would like to open a new account” The banker looks perplexed, agitated and strikes a glare before she realizes what she’s done (too late).  Brings her facial expression to some sort of resolve, and says, “What kind of account?”   to which he says, “the Kind with $200,000 that earns an APY of 3.27% for 6 months, but Thank you, I see you are busy”  and he heads straight to the door.  (She was under stress because she has a report due.)

The Report? “How many Deposits were opened in the last quarter, and the effects of customer service on new account openings”

Wait! It gets better!

This particular Banker I am speaking of is WONDERFUL!  She is a lovely, personable person.  How could this happen, then?  I’ll tell you how.  The incredible desire she has to be seen as valuable in the eyes of her management, had her completely blind to the most important thing - NO - The ONLY thing we are there for.  To satisfy customers that will be willing to entrust their funds to us, so we can keep it safe and earn our livelihood. 

She was caring and brave enough to convey what happened to senior management.  Her manager contacted this person (how, I cannot tell you, I shudder to think that she actually ran out to his car, but, it could happen)

He was so bewildered by the most embarrassing move, that he actually came back and opened the account.  I was amazed that he did, but with fuel prices as they are, he probably figured another 2 miles to another bank.. etc etc.

Lesson learned - Let’s make sure we don’t saturate our customer-facing employees with internal pressures that may cause them to temporarily forget that the customer is #1.

Mr. Robert’s recent comment inspires me. 

I share his passion and feeling that students, especially in Business Schools (in my mind), need to hear this message.  Very few Business Schools have curricula on theory, techniques and benefits of Customer Centricity; not for lack of material, knowledge or proven value.  As a result, most business executives place much of their focus on the acquisition of new customers with little regard for the inherent value of our current customer base.  

I often comment on what I believe are three key powers of influence and control in the world.  Government/Education, Corporations/Business and Personal Values. 

One of these three has a place in the other two, and is ultimately, the true driver of progress.
Of course it is Personal Value.

There is a place for personal values in Government.  It is through our vote that government officials are chosen and driven to act in manners congruent with our values.   However, the voice of personal values (customer values) is not so well represented in business,  where all too often we see the choice between customers, ecology, and other popular standards take a back seat to the bottom line and shareholder expectations.
Asked to choose between the best short term interest of the customer and the bottom line, the customer is almost always asked to wait.   By design, the system usually accounts for the customer only in the most drastic or catastrophic cases or after considerable evolution of mass expectation. 

I don’t pretend that we can change the fundamental business drivers of an open economy, which we all know has more benefits than flaws.  However, I believe that if we can show corporations that customer satisfaction and loyalty are of greater value than currently perceived, we can begin to make a fundamental shift.  Even if XCS enters the board room through the back door, I think it can help to enhance the corporate bottom line as well as improve people’s quality of life far and wide.

Committed to XCS ! 

The last survey I posted asked two simple questions:

1. Are you dissatisfied, satisfied or Extremely Satisfied with the brand of your last purchase?
and
2. Will you definitely, without a doubt, buy this SAME brand again when you need a similar product?

Although the sample size of 25 is limited  (too few of you like to take surveys), I still think its worthwhile sharing.  Participants purchased a wide variety of products from beer to cars (hopefully not at the same time).

The results were interesting but not surprising, although I think most of those taking the survey must have already drank the XCS cool-aid:

                                            Buy again?
Dissatisfied =  4  = 16%          0%
Satisfied      = 17 =  68%         6%
X-Satisfied  =  4  =  16%        94%

I think the first portion regarding how satisfied you were with the brand of your last purchase says much about a well balanced marketplace, where the vast majority (68%) were satisfied with the their purchase.  An equally balanced 16% on each side were Dissatisfied and Extremely Satisfied, the two limits.

What is more interesting is that in this case (probably due to the small sample), none of the dissatisfied and only 6% of the satisfied participants said they were loyal to the brand as a result of their experience. 

On the other hand, 94% of the XCS’d participants would be loyal to the brand based on their experience. 

For at least 25 of you Extremely Satisfied may be the line that has to be crossed for loyalty to be reached. 

[Please note that although fun to look at and discuss, you should not use this survey as a source of difinitive market tendencies due to its limited sample size and lack of industry segmentations].

Committed to XCS !

As I write this post, I’m in the middle of a customer visiting caravan.  A six week-long stint of airport hopping and fast food that takes a lot of time and doesn’t help the efficiency of handling day to day issues.  However, at the end, the most productive and important six weeks I could ever spend. 

So far in the last few weeks I have been reminded of many of the issues that are truly important to my customers and as such, I feel empowered with clarity and energy to make things better.

I think much of our delay to action comes from a lack of clarity, at times, caused by high levels of complexity in our attempt to implement perfect, all encompassing solutions.

Because we have experience and know what our customers need, we feel that we can act on their behalf. 

Most of the time, this is true, but at times our efforts become mired in internal considerations, seemingly equally worthy of attention.  The result rarely exceeds the customer’s expectations.

The voice of the customer has a way of simplifying and focusing us on those things that really matter.

This may sound like common sense, but my experience is that we don’t listen to the customer enough.

Talk to some customers today, especially if the complexity of your solutions seem to be increasing.  You’ll gain clarity, a sense of empowerment and purpose.