Customer Service - Sentiment Matters

In a service industry, customer service is, of course, critical. While we strive to provide the ultimate in service, we will often fail to meet a customers expectations. Plan on it. What matters in these situations is how we handle that service shortcoming. Often, we are measured more on how we handle these issues, than on the service itself. Take a look at the following sentiments, both negative and its' positive converse, as provided in Customer Service for Dummies.

Clients (and people in general) want to know you care; so do. Using the right sentiments, you can take a service failure and turn it into a service success story. Now get out there and care.

Business is about ...

I've always said that business is about relationships. Jeffrey Gitomer, world-class authority on selling and inspirational speaker, sums it up with this. "All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not so equal, people STILL want to do business with their friends." So true.

So that begs the question, how good of a "friend" are you being? Are you nurturing friendships? Friendly is a key to your success that cannot be measured. Disney is lauded as on of the best customer service organizations in the world. Are they friendly? Uh, yea!

Don't just sell a client; become their friend. You'll truly enjoy working for friends (I do) and they'll repeat business.

Challenge for you -- see if you can make ten people smile today. :-) You don' t need to crack a joke. Just pay them a simple complement. Soon you'll begin to notice that smiles are contagious.

Check out the iPhone!

Man, if you've been under a rock lately and haven't heard about the iPhone, go check it out. It's quite a revolutionary product from Apple. They have applied for 200 patents in this one device.

Here is some similar great technology related to touch screen applications. Wow, neat stuff coming for the future.

Aside from the neat phone though, take a look at Steve Jobs' keynote address at Macword where they launched the iPhone. It's a great presentation. Simple, clear use of presentation aides. Each slide had minimal text in a large font but really drove home the point. Presentation was well rehearsed and choreographed as well. At one point, Steve Jobs brought on stage CEOs from Google, Yahoo, and Cingular - these guys were not near as prepared as Jobs and were not near as inspirational.

This could be a "How To" for making presentations. Note, however, that even this great presentation was not without flaw. At one point, Jobs' remote stop working for a minute. He make a joke, went off-topic for a moment (while support back stage was scrambling, I'm sure), then went back to the presentation.

10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint

Hello all,

Check out Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint. Hmmm, interesting.

Here is some more info about "Fixing Your Pitch" (presentation)

ASCE President: What it takes to be successful

For those of you who don't know, ASCE President Bill Marcusen (a Vicksburg, MS resident) has a blog. Mr. Marcusen has a post where he addresses students and discusses the three capabilities that are necessary for a successful future in our field:

• technical capability,
• excellent skill in human relationships and team building, and
• leadership and vision.

Do you have all the necessary skills? If not, what's your plan to obtain each necessary skill? Check it out.

What's in store for 2007?

From Jeffrey Gitomer – “Universal Truth – The only difference between where you are now and where you will be next year at this same time, are the people you meet and the books you read.” Quoted from Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, author of Life is Tremendous.

Who are you going to meet this year? Who can be influential to your success? If you don’t know, find out. If you do know, make a plan to meet them. If you’re waiting on chance and circumstance, you may have a long path to success.

What books are you going to read to make a difference in 2007? Here is my reading list for 2007 (no particular order):

• Selling the Invisible, Harry Beckwith (done 1/07)
  
• The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
• Trading Up, Boston Consulting Group
• A Brand Called You, Peter Montoya
• The Little Black Book of Connections, Jeffrey Gitomer (done 1/07)
  
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, Seth Godin
• Creating Customer Evangelists, Ben McConnel and Jackie Huba
• Simplicity, Bill Jensen
• The Art of Happiness, Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D.
• The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable, Seth Godin (done 1/07)
  
• How to Become a Great Boss, Jeffrey Fox
• The Proverbial Cracker Jack, Dale Henry
• Thinkertoys, Michael Michalko
• Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force, Ben McConnel, et al
• Life is Tremendous, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones
• Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude, Jeffrey Gitomer
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie (reread every year)

So, who are you going to meet this year that will help you with your path to success? What are you going to read to do the same? Got any suggestions? Let me know.

Happy New Year - a bit about marketing

Happy New Year everyone!

Check out this bit about marketing by Seth Godin.

... Jeff

Electable vs. Marketable

It's easy to get the two confused, but if you do, you'll probably regret it.

To be marketable, you must be remarkable. Marketing isn't about getting more than 50% market share, it's about spreading your idea to enough people to be glad you did it... 3% of a market may be more than enough, especially if you have a local business or an expensive service.

The temptation of the marketer is to try to get elected. To be beloved by everyone. As a marketer, you hear from someone who doesn't love your product and you work to change it. Eventually, that strategy leads to boredom, to sameness and to stagnation.

I know it's tempting to create electable products, but it never works. All the tried and true warhorse successes (Nike, Starbucks, Apple... the NSA of marketing examples) didn't accomplish market share until long after they accomplished becoming remarkable. If the founders had set out to get elected, they would have failed in creating much of anything.

Contrast this with the plight of the typical politician. To her, 45% market share is total failure. In my opinion, remarkable politicians (using the word non-judgmentally) like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, David Duke and John Ashcroft are unelectable.

Not because there aren't some people who are passionate about them. Obviously, there are people who are quite passionate. And the media loves to feature politicians that generate passion on the cover of magazines. The challenge isn't coming up with a remarkable story... the challenge for a politician is ensuring that the story is both authentic and appealing enough to spread to the majority.

If I were a marketer, I'd forget about getting elected. I'd ignore the dissidents, even if they are in the majority. You don't need the most popular blog, the consulting firm with every single company as a client or the flavor of ice cream that almost every single person loves. What you need instead is a passionate minority, a minority so passionate that they spread the word. Jackie and Ben call these people the 1% and they exist in just about every community.

If I were a politician (heaven forfend), I'd studiously ignore the 1%. The 1% are the fringe, and they don't actually want you to get elected. They merely want you to make a point. I'd skip this group and pay attention to the next 3% of the population. These people still have passion but they also understand what it takes to get elected.

So, back to my original point: Who have you offended today? You're not running for anything exept perhaps Mayor of the Edges.