[wp_connect_like_button href="http://www.jeremyfloyd.com/?p=771" send_button="disabled" layout="standard" width="600" show_faces="enabled" verb="like" colorscheme="light" font="arial" ref="" /]

Several months ago, I read Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness. The words on the page were comfortable like slipping on a pair of broken-in house shoes. As I have transitioned in my career from a front-line customer contact to a consultant, I have met so many people that consider customer service to be pedestrian and beneath them. Successful businesses, on the other hand, understand the value and priority of exceptional customer service.

In recent weeks, I contrasted customer service experiences good and  bad that gave me a platform to discuss customer service. In this conclusion post, I wanted to wrap up some ideas related to those two experiences and provide some thoughts on what it means to be remarkable in customer service.

Based on the stories, I put together a short list of some of the customer service vices and victories illustrated in the two previous posts. This list is not exhaustive, but these are very common issues in all lines of business.

1. Who’s Your Customer? So commonly, employees and even businesses misidentify their customers as those that sign their checks (their bosses) or the one that shouts the loudest (investors). In every business there is one true customer that is the primary reason for existence. There may be multiple “customers,” but one is the sole reason for that person or business to have a job. Despite the difficulty of untangling the competing customers, identifying the one true customer provides a lens by which daily decisions should be made: “How does this affect my customer?”
2. Last Touch Luster - Retailers know that one of the most critical customer service positions is their cashiers. Whether they always deliver is another question. The cashier is usually the last touch point in the customer experience. If the customer has experienced mediocre customer service, the cashier can usually end the trip on an up note. On the other hand, if you had a delightful shopping experience and then meet long lines only to find a bitchy cashier who’s ready for a smoke break, a perfectly remarkable experience can quickly sour. What is the last touch point in your business? Is it delivering a consistent or enhanced experience?
   In both flight experiences, I encountered ticket agents, gate agents, pilots, and flight attendants, but my last touch point was the flight attendant, which colored the experiences.
3. To Thine Own Role Be True – Have you ever had a waiter make a management decision? “No sir, we will not re-cook that steak…it is only slightly overcooked.” This phenomena often occurs because of the confusion of the customer (i.e. the first point)–the employee is assuming that their customer is their boss and not the customer that is seated in front of them. The employee should be empowered to make decisions on behalf of their customer, but the employee should never take on more responsibility than they have when telling the customer “no.”
   In my experience with the American Airlines flight attendant, he assumed more responsibility than he actually had, which was quickly undermined by the captain of the plane.
4. Seek first to understand - Steve Covey said it best but understanding is foundational to communication, and communication is key to service. So often we zoom through listening as part of communication and get right to the point of our assumption. Unfortunately, our assumptions are built on previous experiences that have nothing to do with the present circumstances. Observing and listening the situation can go a long way to making a customer service superstar.
   In my experience, the American flight attendant simply didn’t understand the circumstances. Taking two minutes to listen to the situation would have likely yielded very different treatment. Instead, his assumption was that a group of guys in Tijuana Mexico meant a raucous party (not a mission trip). His assumption was wrong and resulted in a miserable experience.
5. Admit Your Faults – Finally, two of the most important and often neglected words are “I’m Sorry.” You can’t please everyone, but you can tear down the impenetrable wall of defiance by simply saying, “I screwed up, and I am sorry.” Hopefully, there are few occasions to utter an apology, but there are times that an apology can simply wash away the anxiety and reaction of a negative experience.

Regardless of whether we are discussing the airline industry, hospitality, retail or professional services, we are ALL in the customer service business. It has always been important, and service will be a critical factor of success in business in the future.

Tell me about your recent excellent or dreadful customer service experience.

[wp_connect_comments href="http://www.jeremyfloyd.com/?p=771" width="600" num_posts="6" colorscheme="light" /]

Only one week after the American Eagle situation, I had an experience on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Knoxville that was truly remarkable.

Image used via creative commons license via @kevinkluu

After boarding the plane, my business partner and I were seated directly in front of the bulk head (the same seat as the other flight). The flight attendant leaned against the flight cabin door with perturbed demeanor. With each question, he would roll his eyes and say something under his breath like, “If you’d just listen, you wouldn’t have to ask all these questions.” He was clearly from Jamaica with a very thick accent. Occasionally, he would roll his eyes and shoot a grimace to the passengers in the front of the plane.

Then we were told that the plane needed to be refueled before taxiing to the runway. This gave plenty of opportunity for the passengers to interact with the flight attendant. Each time, he was less than enthused, but he was not confrontational.

Finally, after the plane was fueled and the main door closed, our flight attendant changed demeanor. He stood tall, stretched his arms and then drew the handset to his mouth like a professional referee in a Las Vegas boxing match: “GOOD AFTERNOON LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND WELCOME ABOARD. My name is Rinsky and I will be your flight attendant today. It’s a short flight to Knoxville, but I aim to make it the highlight of your day. No, I don’t have a Jamaican accent; I’m from Arkansas. My job is to make you smile and enjoy the brief time that you are on the flight. You may hate airports, you may hate Delta, but while you are on this plane my goal is to make you like me. So, if I can do ANYTHING to make your trip better than it is right now, let me know.”

The laughter echoed the plane, and passengers that were once fearful of his terse demeanor were so pleasantly surprised that they were engaging with him as he walked up and down the aisle. Not a single announcement was read and every time he made a public address, it seemed fresh as though we had never heard the instructions to fasten and release our seat belts.

The plane landed without incident and Rinsky was truly the star of the day. After landing, I told his story over and over because he delivered happiness.

In the final post of this series, I am going to comment on the customer service principals of these two stories.

We are all in the customer service business. Sometimes we don’t correctly identify our “customers,” but we are all in the customer service business nevertheless. In the course of the next three posts, I am going to tell two personal customer service stories, and in the third I’ll reflect on some of the principals that deliver a remarkable experience.

First Story

About three weeks ago, I was returning from Tijuana, Mexico where I spent a week with a group of about 10 guys working at an orphanage and in an impoverished area called the Colonia (a village that is literally built on a land fill). On the 6th day of our trip, I became very sick (I don’t want to talk about the pineapple popsicle). I spent two days depleting far more liquids than I could replenish. After a very rough second night, I visited a local doctor in Tijuana (suffice it to say that I’ve been in more sterile Veterinary offices); he gave me about four shots and almost immediately improved my sickness. In addition, he changed my antibiotic to Bactrim.

The next day, we crossed the border and boarded a flight from San Diego to Chicago. That flight was mostly uneventful. About an hour before landing my shoulders became very tight. After we landed, I went to our departing gate and called my wife to describe my symptoms to her. Suddenly, all of my joints began locking up. My vision began to black out, and my heart was racing. I felt like I was going to pass out.

Needless to say, I was very concerned. Should I call 911 and go to a hospital in Chicago? Should I “tough out” the flight to Knoxville? The cooler heads of the group suggested that hypothetically it would be faster to take the 45 minute flight to Knoxville and go to the Emergency Room there than to take a risk on going to a crowded Chicago hospital. I’m not sure whether they proffered this logic to ensure they would sleep in their own bed that night or whether they truly believed it, either way it made sense to me.

By the time that we were supposed to board the American Airlines (American Eagle) plane, the joints in my hands were locking up and extremely painful–I could not even pick up my carry on luggage, and I was panicking. One of my friends on the trip explained my situation to the gate agent and carried my bag onto the plane. After reissuing my ticket to give me a row to myself, I was assisted down the jet way by several friends on the trip. As I recall, it seemed like I was ‘stealing shoes from K-mart’ my stride was no more than 6 inches down the jet way, and when made it to the bottom to board the plane I was even more weak and confused.

As I entered the plane, I could hear an exchange between the flight attendant and my friend who had carried my bag: “I need to know whether there is a security threat or a medical emergency. This PLANE ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL I SAY SO. Where is your “FRIEND?”

Tension was thick. The passenger on the 4th row became very alarmed, but the flight attendant told her to be quiet. When he turned to go to the back of the plane, he interrupted a conversation between 2 of the guys that was with our group, and he asked “Excuse me? What did you say?”

“I wasn’t talking to you; I was talking to the gentleman across the aisle from me,” our group member said.

Inflamed the flight attendant shouted, “Have you been drinking? I smell a strong presence of alcohol.”

Another man of our group said, “Sir, we have been working in an orphanage for a week. No one in our group has had any alcohol this week.”

“I need for you to exit the plane sir.” The flight attendant said to him.

Then for the next few minutes, the flight attendant conducted an impromptu interrogation with several of the men in our group. Finally, I was asked to leave the plane and explain to the captain and the flight attendant my situation. The flight attendant was noticeably angry and sweating, and he wanted a full account of my story. After I explained the situation, again, we boarded the plane.

After a few snide remarks from the flight attendant during the flight announcements, we were clear for takeoff, finally. Despite great fear of passing out through the flight, I made it to Knoxville. The flight attendant never changed his abrasive demeanor. After spending that night in the hospital and the next days recovering, I finally discovered that I was having an allergic reaction to the sulfa in the antibiotic. Of the whole experience, first and foremost I will never forget the Mexican bathrooms, but in all seriousness that American Airlines flight attendant will always remind me of the horribly embarrassing experience I had with their airlines.

Why do we tip 15% and not 10%? 20% instead of 15%? Sure, it is some sort of ransom “to insure prompt service,” but really we tip based upon our expectations. If we expect lousy service and they exceed the expectations, we generously tip. If we expect Class A service but are delivered a Waffle House experience, we stroke some appalling number on the credit card slip as to make sure they “get the message.”

At lunch yesterday, the poor waiters were terribly short-staffed. Two tuckered table jockeys were tirelessly running full pace to underwhelm the needs of 12 tables.  As we opened the door to the restaurant, subtle hints of the abysmal service foreshadowed the experience: 5 minutes to be greeted, grunting faces of the patrons, kids hanging from the rafters. But a nice enough wink and nod from the sushi chef led me to believe that we would be taken care of. “Silly man that is hoodwinked by the sushi chef is doomed to a dinner of defeat,” my fortune should have read.

You know the drill. We sat down. Ten minutes pass before our waiter makes it to our table to take drink, dinner, and hell dessert orders, but this waiter wasn’t out back puffing on a stogey or flirting with the hostess–he was genuinely working as hard as physically possible, furiously juggling tables like a carney who just through a flaming chainsaw into the mix. There is no question that he was working hard, but he simply didn’t have time to get drinks on our table or tend to our basic needs.

My wife commented, “we’re not tipping this guy,” and I thought, we are not getting our basic needs met we probably shouldn’t tip this guy–very much at least. I did feel sorry for him, but I was also walking to the bar with crying children hanging from my leg just trying to get a soda and a milk. So, I postulated, “he could have fixed this…with little more than 5 seconds effort.” Had the overworked young man greeted us when we came in and said, “guys, welcome, we have an extremely packed house, and we are two staff short, I would love for you to stay but I want you to know that I am going to do my best to keep up.” Done. My expectations are set: (1) if I stay here, the service is going to suck, but I trust that this guy is going to do his best to take care of me, or (2) I am not in the mood to deal with this today, but I will be back because he took the time to address me. Instead the winking, nodding sushi chef dis-served us and the restaurant. He set the expectation that we will take care of you despite the chaos you see unfolding.

Often we think we want more business, even when we can’t handle it; we communicate our best wishes instead of our realities to our customers; and therefore we set unrealistic expectations in our customer’s minds. Communicate realistic expectations and work like hell to outperform, or you’ll end up working like hell communicate why you didn’t.

Friday, I had the good fortune to play The Honors Course in Ooltewah.  Without any discussion of how badly I was beaten by the earth manipulated into 18 grueling exercises in sadism, I was simply amazed by the truly royal treatment that I received there.  From the moment we drove through the unassuming gates at the nearly concealed entrance of the golf club, it was as if we were embarking upon a journey into a place that time had not bothered to pester.

At the bag drop, we were greeted and welcomed to the course. As our bags were unloaded from the car, we were truly welcomed into an experience that is reserved for heads of state.

“Gentlemen, we are under a frost delay.  Please go into the locker room, relax a bit, and we will have the practice range open for you soon.  If there is anything that we can do for you, just ask.”  The pro welcomed a few boys from Knoxville squarely and warmly just as if we had flown in from the golf materland. Greeted at the door of the locker room, we were lead through the clubhouse and invited to savor the experience.  Like a fine meal we were encouraged to take it all in with subtlety and distinction without any rushing.

After about an hour we were directed to the range where our clubs were waiting, freshly cleaned. After a few masterful shots, we were introduced to our caddies, which truly transformed my experience from a walk in the park to a guided journey to Everest. “Boys, many a man has come to this course expecting victory and suffering defeat. We will guide you through the doglegs, undulations, shelves, and traps, rough and water, but you have to remember at the end of the day that this course will make you humble in your game–it always does.”

At every turn, the level of professionalism and courtesy simply astounded me.  From my caddy to the snack shop attendant,  the aim of every staff person was to make the day a remarkable experience.

After the day was done. I thanked my caddy for the guidance that he had given me, and he said, “It was truly my pleasure to caddy for you today sir.”  Often, you can hear a variety of professionals in the employ of customer service  say “my pleasure,” but truly meaning and creating a pleasurable experience are quite another.