Great & Small - Customer Service

Getting to Grandfather Mountain

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

How to Connect with Your Customers Through Your Website.

I mentioned the other day the difficulties of connecting with your customers on the web. The problem is, really, that you need to start a conversation and establish a relationship with someone BEFORE you can ever directly communicate with them. That’s a tough thing to do, and one that many highly paid marketing firms fail at (miserably) every day.

The good news is that it CAN be done, and it is often done best by small groups and businesses that are used to dealing personally with their customers. They understand how to communicate with their audience because they do it every day, and they carry that experience over to their websites with a lot of success.

A great example of this is the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Association, a small non-profit established to preserve Grandfather Mountain, near Linville NC, as a park and educational resource. For those of you not familiar with this amazing park, it features incredible mountain scenery, a mile-high swinging bridge, wildlife habitats, hiking…. It has been called the “Alps in the South,” and it is definitely worth a visit if you are in the area.

I have fond memories of visiting with my family as a child, and, since we will be in the area for vacation already, I suggested to my husband that we stop along the way with our two kids. So, I did what I always do when planning a trip, I turned to my computer and found… an amazing website that really connects with potential visitors.

In fact, the Stewardship Association has more trouble than most connecting with potential visitors. Besides the obvious barrier of the web, they apparently face obstacles in the form of narrow, winding mountain roads and GPS units that weren’t made for back-hills navigation. So, this is a group that understands that if they don’t connect with their audience before they have an opportunity to welcome them to the park, their visitors may never arrive.

The result is a fabulous “Getting Here” page that really demonstrates how to successfully connect with your customers on the web. Here is an excerpt:

We recommend against relying on a navigation system or other form of computer generated directions. Computers are machines that do not get car sick traveling curvy roads. Their software programs do not always recommend the quickest, simplest and most-traveled routes. They frequently default to the shortest mileage between two points (often sending drivers through remote areas over very narrow country roads).

Please read through the directions listed below for the route that A REAL HUMAN BEING recommends to get from there to here. We want you to have a good experience at Grandfather Mountain, and that starts by having a good trip to our front door.

Yes, you CAN connect with your customers on your website. And you don’t need to be a high-powered marketing firm to do it. Have a conversation with your customers and interact as “real human beings,” the same thing that you are already doing successfully every day.

As for me, I’m even more excited about our trip now that I have visited their site. And I’ll definitely be bringing along these driving directions and turning off the GPS!

Abracadabra! Bibbity Bobbity Boo! Words really are magic!

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

(And if you put your name on it, YOU are ultimately responsible for the results)

This is a follow up to my post last week. To recap, a third-party calling on behalf of my insurance company asked about my employment status, giving me the options of employed, self-employed, or housewife. Not surprisingly, the last option didn’t sit well with me, especially in light of the fact that they had not asked if my husband was anything other than employed or self-employed.

I realized, however, that I missed a key lesson here for business owners. While I was willing to push the blame to the third-party company – I have otherwise had a good experience with my insurance company – that really wasn’t fair. Ultimately, the insurance company holds the responsibility for the actions of the parties that it hires, particularly when these parties are acting on their behalf and interacting with customers.

This is an important lesson for small businesses, who often subcontract out work because they lack the internal resources to handle certain jobs. Whether work is done in-house or subcontracted, when it leaves your control to go out to the customer, it is your responsibility to ensure the job is done right. This includes the obvious tangible quality control, but also the communication that accompanies the job. If you authorize people to speak on your behalf, you need to be certain that the quality and tone of their communications meet or exceed the standards that you have set for yourself.

As a business, one of the things that NimblePros prides itself on is our ability to communicate with clients. But I will let you in on a little secret here – that ability isn’t a perfect one for any of us, and it is a trained and practiced behavior as much as it is a natural talent. We also recognize that there is always room for improvement and we constantly strive to be better.

So how do we do it so successfully so much of the time?

It starts with hiring the right people. I always emphasize during our recruiting periods that we can teach applicants to be better developers, but that the existing communication skills of the applicant need to be excellent. (Our very first hire was a disaster in this regard; I ended up giving him a Strunk and White Elements of Style book about two weeks into the job. He quit shortly thereafter, saving us the pain of firing him.) Applicants with obvious communication problems don’t make it past the initial screening, and our interview process evaluates applicants on their technical and communication skills. To be successful with NimblePros, you must be outstanding in both of these areas.

The next step is putting your confidence in your team and empowering them to communicate with the client. I want each and every one of my developers to have the ability and self-confidence to speak directly with the customer. (This is apparently nearly unheard of in most developer shops – and with good reason in a lot of cases. It seems those companies didn’t emphasize communication in the interview process.) This seems like a simple thing, and it is, but it avoids a lot of miscommunication by limiting the layers through which a message must pass.

The next step is mentoring. We work with our new staff, explaining our expectations and how we want things to be communicated. And we also help them in their initial interactions with clients – we want to be sure that anything going out the door (or outbox) with our name on it is up to our standards.

However, the real magic is the communication and collaboration within our team. Our senior staff is perfectly capable of writing emails and conducting phone calls on their own, and that is certainly the case most of the time. Nevertheless, there are certain key junctures in our relationships with a client that we rely on the collaboration of our team to get it right. It is not uncommon for us to schedule significant phone calls to clients with multiple members of our team. Each one of them has valuable ideas to share, and it ensures that everyone – including the client – is on the same page. And it is not uncommon to hear, “Hey, can you come and look at this email that I am going to send to the client? I want your input.” Even – perhaps especially – the most senior members of our staff realize that a quick review by another member of the team ensures that their message is communicated clearly and professionally to the client.

Regardless of how good you are at what you do, the success of your business depends on the communication skills of your team. Words really are magic.

Seriously, Housewife?

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

So, a little while ago, I got a call from a firm doing a policy audit for my auto insurance. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my insurance company, but this is one of those times when the fell flat on their face. We’ll blame it on the third-party company, but I’m still exasperated!

To start out with, the representative insisted on calling me Mrs. Smith. As far as I am concerned, Mrs. Smith is my mother-in-law. I went to school for a long time to be called Dr. Smith – and if you are calling me in the middle of dinner when I am trying to get two kids to the table in time to get them off to Tae Kwon Do, you need to get it right!

But I let that slide in the interests of keeping the call brief, and things were going relatively well (less the arguing children in the background – why do they always wait until you are on the phone to disagree - LOUDLY?) until we got to the question of my employment. Now, I don’t know why it even matters to the insurance company, but I was given three choices. “Are you employed, self-employed, or a housewife?”

Am I a WHAT?! I was floored. (And speechless. Fortunately, I have recovered.)

I respect people who stay at home – I wish sometimes that I had the opportunity to do so. But regardless of my own choices, I have a large number of friends who are currently at home with their children and not otherwise employed, and I know it is HARD WORK.

However, “housewife” isn’t exactly the most acceptable term. It has never, so far as I know, invoked a good impression of the bearer. In the 18^th century, it was used to describe “a mending kit where people usually kept toiletries.” The last century saw it replaced with the warmer, and probably still the most accurate term, “homemaker.” The last few years have just dragged it out to the club and through the mud with “Desperate Housewives,” and reality-ish shows like “Housewives of (fill in the city and locate a handful of snobby women of questionable character and call it television).”

Getting beyond the term itself, the real frustration hit me a few moments later when I realized that while I had been asked the question, my husband had not! No, his choices were “employed and self-employed.” The company had the audacity to assume that as a woman, I would be likely to be staying home, but my husband would not.

I did a little research. No one can agree on the number, but there are at least 200,000 men staying at home with their pre-school children in the United States. Probably more, given the current economy. What about them? Why is staying at home an acceptable choice for a woman and not a man? And what would they be called if it were?

And so, a seemingly simple question has provoked a bit of a tirade on the current societal perception of gender norms, and how one should correctly refer to those important men and women whose primary task is keeping their household running smoothly.

Perhaps I spend too long thinking about these things – insurance companies clearly don’t!

Coincidentally, I had to call the health insurance company today, and they also wanted to confirm some information.

Their only question: Is your daughter still in school?

Pause. What?

My response: Uh, yeah, she’s EIGHT.

Well, SOMEONE has to think about these things.

Banishing Your Customers to the Link Farm

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

Avoiding Hoops and Hang-ups for Qualified Leads

I receive a lot of invitations to “exciting” webinars, as I am sure you all do. Most of them are free, which sounds compelling, except that they cost an hour of my time. And as my time is very valuable, I can’t afford the expense to attend most of them. (Besides, what happened to the good old days when a free seminar at least included dinner while I sat through a thinly veiled sales pitch?)

Today, though, I actually received one that sounded interesting enough to attend. Not only was it worth the hour of my time for the seminar itself, but I was even willing to hand over my name and contact information, so as to allow the presenter to bombard me with more “important information” well into the future.

The initial email was good. It got my attention. Click to register. Easy enough.

Once I clicked, I went o a landing page that looked pleasant enough. A little long, since I had to scroll down to find the boxes to fill in my information, but not too bad. Fill in “name,” fill in “email,” click the “Reserve a Seat” box. Done....

Not done. The page that loaded, which looked nothing like the page that I just left, wanted me to enter the SAME information again. Only now, they wanted “First Name,” “Last Name,” “Email Address,” and “Job Title.” All information which I would willingly provide, except for the fact that I ALREADY PROVIDED IT. And now I was a little hesitant to provide it again, especially since I felt like there was some bait-and-switch going on since the page was so different.

Lesson Number One: Ensure that your users have a predictable experience. Banners and emails should take users to a site that looks similar to the banner/email and the site should contain the information that was advertised. Subsequent pages on the site should also have a similar look and feel, particularly if you expect users to proceed from one to another sequentially in order to complete a task. Users want to feel like they are having a conversation with the same person, not being handed off to the “next available associate” (at some other company).

Lesson Number Two: Keep the barriers to a minimum in order to increase conversions. Any given task should require the least amount of effort by the user to complete. Any additional information required by the page is another barrier, so be sure that “must have” details are the only ones included. If you MUST know more, try actually building a relationship with the client – I guarantee it will be a lot more rewarding. And for goodness sake, please don’t ask for the same information twice!

And yet, I STILL thought the seminar sounded compelling, so I went ahead and continued to register and….

Done? Sort of…. The registration was a success, and I got a nice little confirmation page which at least matched the garish green of the last page. Except that then, the organizers thought it would be useful to send me back to the home page of their site and…. they sent me to a link farm instead. It seems that omitting one little letter from your url makes a big difference between continuing to build the customer relationship and providing your leads with valuable information about kitchen appliances and payday loans.

Sigh. On the bright side, I still have my hour.

Customer Choice Means Customer Satisfaction (in medicine and in agile development)

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

As a veterinarian, my job is to provide medical care for animals. However, my larger role is to provide recommendations and support for the families of the animals for whom I provide care. But my role is NOT to make decisions for them.

(This entry really does pertain to the concept of agile; just keep reading.)

This is a confusing concept for many people. Typically, most people are used to going into their physician’s office, waiting for hours, seeing the doctor for a brief minute, and then being sent out the door with something scribbled on a pad, only to find out from the receptionist (who is well versed in doctor scribble) that the doctor has decided that the proper treatment for your sore toe is an MRI, to be scheduled at the earliest opening (three months from now, at which point your toe will either be better or you will have suffered for months without any treatment).

And while I can offer all kinds of comments about why this scenario is bad, my biggest complaint is that the patient was not involved in the decision-making process.

In any given medical situation, there are a variety of options for diagnosis and care. And while there may be one gold-standard (in this case, the MRI), there is not one option that fits every patient’s situation. Some patients may prefer to try some anti-inflammatory medications to see if those provide relief. Others may prefer to see an orthopedist or to try a special shoe that alleviates the pressure on the toe. And some might like an xray, instead of an MRI, because it is easier to schedule and less costly. Any of these options is a perfectly reasonable one, and the patient should be allowed to decide which option is the best for their own situation.

That is not to say that the doctor should simply rattle off the options and let the patient select randomly from the list. The role of the doctor is to:

1. Identify the Problem (sore toe)

2. Do Basic Diagnostics (physical exam)

3. List Options for the Next Step, along with the Pros and Cons of Each Option

The doctor does not have and cannot have all of the information about each patient’s unique situation, even medically. However, it is the role of the doctor to ensure that the patient (or family of the patient, in my case) does, so that they can make an informed decision. (Sometimes the client cannot make the decision; they need to know what their husband/friend/neighbor/boss would do. That is simply another critical bit of information that they need to proceed to the next step.)

Once the decision is made, the doctor’s job is not done. He has one more crucial responsibility:

4. Support the Patient’s Decision

Obviously, the doctor should facilitate whatever treatment or further diagnostics the patient has selected at this point. However, a more critical piece of this step is that the doctor should reinforce to the patient that they have made a good decision. The doctor has provided only options that meet a reasonable standard of care, so any of the options are viable ones. And while it may not be the one that the doctor would have selected, what the patient has selected is the best option for them.

In all of the years that I have practiced, I have yet to have a client be unhappy about an informed decision that they have made with regard to the care of their pets when they were given the opportunity to make a choice.

Now, this is all well and good for the practice of medicine, but how does this pertain to agile development?

One of the greatest differences between “traditional development” and agile development is the level of customer interaction. In the scenario above, traditional development is a lot like going to your typical physician’s office – the developer takes a cursory look at the customer’s needs and quickly fires off what they think is the best solution to the problem. They often don’t give the customer a lot of choices along the way, and the customer leaves with a big bill and little understanding of why the chosen solution was the best one, other than “trust us, we’re the experts.” And in the end, the customer’s problem is solved very slowly (from their perspective), and, in the worst case, might not even be addressed at all.

Agile does it better. The customer is intimately involved in the process, helping to make decisions about which option is best to address their problem. More importantly, because the customer is working closely with the development team, the developers have a good understanding of the problem that the customer needs to have addressed. Short iterations with the release of operational code at each one mean that the customer is seeing results right away; there is no drawn out waiting period before there is any visible progress on the project.

However, agile developers can still learn something from the steps above. Just like doctors and veterinarians, developers often forget the critical fourth step: reinforce to the client that they have made the best decision for their own situation. Too often, the client’s choice is only remembered when there are problems (as in, “Well, you KNEW it was going to take longer and be more expensive if you wanted us to fully evaluate your legacy code before we started the project”). Instead, reinforce throughout the course of the project why the client made a good decision for them (“The investment that you are putting into this project upfront is going to ensure that we have fewer surprises and delays later in the process.”). The client will be much more confident in the direction of the project, and much happier with the results.

The client WANTS to be happy with the decision that they have made. It is the job of the professional to help them get there. And remember to trust your clients. They know more than they think they do.

Disney Delivers the Magic

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

As I mentioned previously, customer service is one of my passions. As a small business owner, I appreciate the impact that it can have on the success of my company. As a consumer, I am constantly evaluating other companies to see how they measure up. Disney is one of those companies that has it right.

If you have small children, you have probably at least looked into a Disney vacation. Although Mickey doesn’t have the big screen presence that he used to, every child wants to visit The House of the Mouse. My children, ages three and eight, are no exception, and I am happy to report that each of our trips has been more delightful than the last.

Walt Disney’s vision for Disneyland was “a place where children and their parents could have fun together.” Walt himself was intimately involved in all aspects of the construction, and the original 8 acre site evolved into 160 by the time Disneyland opened in California in 1955. Now that has become over a dozen separate parks on 3 continents, a cruise line, and adventures around the globe. Not too shabby for a place of which Walt once said "I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible, because dreams offer too little collateral."

But for all of the fabulous rides, attractions, and shows, the thing that really sets Disney apart is the people. Disney cast members, as they are called, are empowered to provide superior customer service. And they do so consistently, with a smile on each and every face.

Two years ago, our fairy godmother was Kathy from the Beach Club Hotel. On the morning of our big Princess breakfast, we discovered that our daughter’s Cinderella gown was much too long – a royal disaster! My husband rushed to the hotel shop, looking for sewing supplies or pins or anything that might work, but they had nothing for sale that fit the bill. Not to worry. Kathy, who was working at the shop that morning, reached into her pocket and pulled out 4 safety pins. Crisis averted, and our happy princess went on her way to the ball. Just another magical day at Disney.

This year, we were lucky enough to sail for a week on the Disney Magic, which was a fabulous experience in and of itself. But what made it truly magical were the cast members. We had the opportunity, over the course of the trip, to really get to know several of them. The highlight of our trip really was Passayu, our assistant server. From hats made out of the table napkins to a new origami project at every meal, Passayu delighted our children (and the adults!). Each and every cast member that we encountered conveyed the same joy at being a part of the Disney experience, and went above and beyond to ensure that “their guests” were having a magical voyage.

And these are just two examples. Over the course of our many trips, I have observed and experienced countless acts of kindness from the cast members. I recall our first trip to the Pooh character meal at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom, where Pooh and his assistant spent extra time with a young disabled man whose father told them that the “silly old bear” was his son’s favorite. The son lacked the ability to say so himself, but the pure joy was evident on his face. A few years ago, we were in line when a child ahead of us lost his family’s photopass, and with it the ability to retrieve all of the vacation photos taken in the parks over the previous week. Cast member Clancy kept a smile on her face while she simultaneously recovered access to the photos, calmed the irritated mother, and entertained the distraught young man and his brother. From encounters with princesses who make each child feel like royalty to maintenance workers who clean up with a smile on their face, Disney does it right.

UN-believable: Four Lessons in Customer Service. Or Not.

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

So, as I was finishing up my last post on customer service, I was waiting for a service person at my house. So, let's do a little case study, shall we, about what went wrong.

First, some background. Over the weekend, my washing machine flooded the laundry room and the basement below. A real inconvenience, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. My insurance company gets REALLY high marks for customer service (USAA – if you are military or prior service, you need to check them out!) and arranged for a company to come out that night to start the drying out process.

The weekend went fine. We were dealing with “Frank,” who came out twice over the weekend. Both “Frank” and “John,” who came out Monday to check things, promised to have “Bill” call us to set up an appointment for Wednesday (today) to fix some carpet that had gotten wet. No problem, except that yesterday came and went with no call from Bill. I left Frank a voice mail this morning, but no reply. (Had I checked my machine at home, I would have realized I had two calls from Bill this morning, asking where we were for our 9:30 appointment.)

So, Customer Service Lesson One: Do what you tell the customer you are going to do, particularly when they expect you to call or follow up in a certain time frame. This one is pretty easy to grasp, but apparently really hard to actually accomplish.

Customer Service Lesson Two: Establish responsibility within your organization, and follow up. Don’t assume “someone else” is going to take care of it, because they are assuming the same thing, and that excuse doesn’t go far with customers who just want the job done.

In this case, Frank gets high marks for his mistake correction. He finally calls me back, apologetic for missing my initial call, and extremely sorry that the appointment wasn’t communicated to us. He also gets points for specifically saying that he knows that it was their problem, and that we should have been called. (The right thing to do in customer service, but typically one that is forgotten.)

So, at this point, I am not terribly irritated, I have rescheduled my day, and no problem. Customer crisis averted.

Unfortunately, not really.

First we talk about rescheduling the appointment. I explain that later today won’t work because I am at work, and it will have to be tomorrow. Ok, Frank sets up the appointment for 2 pm tomorrow.

But now there is a problem. Frank NEEDS to come out to get a linoleum sample so the floor can get fixed. It HAS to be TODAY. I explain again that I am at work, and that tomorrow (when I am home already) would be a lot better. Frank insists.

Customer Service Lesson Three: Don’t impose arbitrary deadlines on your customer. I’m pretty sure that no one is going to die if Frank doesn’t have his sample today. One day will delay things by as much as… perhaps a day. Perhaps not.

But, fine, let’s keep Frank happy and expedite things. I review my schedule and tell Frank I can run home for a few minutes at 3:30. Frank tells me that won’t work, because he has another meeting at that time, and it has to be earlier.

Customer Service Lesson Four: Respect your customer’s time. I appreciate that he has another meeting. But if he is asking me to meet arbitrary deadlines, it is really pushing it to also ask that I arrange things around his schedule. I was at work. We were pretty clear on that point.

However, I’m a nice person (regardless of what you might have heard to the contrary), and I agree to meet Frank at 2:30, being very clear that I am leaving work to do so and it has to be quite swift. No problem, two minutes, he says.

And since I am a nice person, I left work so that I could be at home at 2:15, so Frank didn’t have to wait. And, at 3:10, Joe showed up. “Oh, Frank sent me. He said between 2:30 and 3:30.”

At this point, all I can tell you is to please refer to the lessons above. Clearly Frank and Company haven’t learned any of them. The result is an unhappy customer (who is likely to be highly critical of anything that they do going forward). As I’ve said before, it’s not that !@#($&*$ hard!

(Oh, and did I mention that as Joe was leaving, Bill was calling to reschedule? At least he called.)

It's Not That !@#($&*$ Hard!

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:25:55 GMT

That was the other name I was considering for my blog. “Great and Small” seemed easier to spell consistently, so it won out. But it doesn’t convey nearly as much passion about one of my biggest frustrations as a consumer and as a small business owner. I am talking about customer service.

Customer service is one of the most critical parts of any business. It is what makes some companies shine, others mediocre, and many just plain stink. It is the thing that customers remember long after the purchase, and the thing that brings them back, bringing their friends and neighbors with them. And it doesn’t cost you a thing (unless you do it badly).

Customer service starts with the first interaction the customer has with your business. Do you welcome the customer, with your sign or webpage? Is the person that answers the phone or the door doing so with a smile on their fact, happy to be with your company and delighted to share the experience? (Yes, answering the phone with a smile translates into an entirely different tone in your voice – try it sometime!)

Customer service continues through the sales process. Do you make it easy for the customer to find what they need and to make decisions? Do you offer assistance (but not so much as to be pushy), and do you educate the customer on their purchase (and not just on your own products and services)?

And customer service doesn’t end there. Do you deliver what you promised? Do you follow up to ensure that the CUSTOMER thinks you delivered what was promised (and hopefully then some)? Do you ensure that even if the customer doesn’t buy from you, that you have made the experience a pleasant one, so that they might consider you in the future or recommend you to others?

What if there are problems? Do you address them promptly and pleasantly? Our staff loves mistakes – it gives them the opportunity to really shine. That is not to say that we encourage them – we’d much rather exceed the customer’s expectations the first time. But customers remember when a company goes above and beyond to correct a problem – probably because that is so rare these days.

Customer service is one of my favorite topics, and it is a critical element in every successful small businesses. So often companies get too wrapped up in what they do; they forget that they are providing their product or service for the benefit of the customer. They don’t expect the best from their employees, and they fail to show their customers the respect that they deserve. (Which is not to say that the customer is always right, but they are always entitled to respect). And although they may be good at what they do, the business suffers horribly.

So pay a little attention to your customer service. It doesn’t cost you a thing, and it can have a huge impact on your business. After all, it really isn’t all that!@#($&*$ hard.