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July 15, 2013Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary – Interview with Steve Curtin
Today’s interview is with Steve Curtin, Customer Enthusiast, who has recently published Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary. This interview follows on from my recent interview: It’s all about customer service, customer service, customer service – Interview with Tom Walsh CEO of Staycity and is number sixty-five in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.
Here’s the highlights from the interview I did with Steve:
- Steve has recently published: Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary.
- Steve wrote his new book to add another voice to the conversation about the current (unacceptable) state of customer service in much of the world. While there have been many excellent books on the subject, I set out to answer three important questions that are on the minds of most managers who are grappling with day-to-day customer service issues.
- 1.) Why is customer service so predictably poor? The reason that you and I, as customers, consistently receive predictably poor customer service is because exceptional customer service is voluntary. Employees don’t have to deliver it. And most don’t.
- 2.) Where do we (companies wanting to improve customer service quality) start? The first thing I would do to improve customer service quality in any business is to individually pose the following question to employees: “Would you describe for me, from your perspective, what you do – what your job entails?”
- 3.) How can we make this stick? (Knowing that most improvement efforts wane over time) In order to normalise exceptional customer service so that it occurs reliably, over time, by design (rather than inconsistently, here and there, by chance), incorporate job essence into job function.
- Incorporate Job Essence Into Job Function
- Customers don’t want “outrageous” or “over-the-top” customer service at every turn. In everyday service situations, most customers simply want to be acknowledged and appreciated.
- Each of the 7 simple ways (highlighted and explored in depth in the book) to raise customer service represents a “little thing” that a service provider could do to make a big impact on a customer. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary really is that little extra!
- The 7 behaviours that will improve the quality of customer service are:
- 1.) Express genuine interest
- 2.) Offer sincere and specific compliments
- 3.) Share unique knowledge
- 4.) Convey authentic enthusiasm
- 5.) Use appropriate humour [e.g., to build rapport (bartenders are known for this); to enliven an ordinary process (advertisers do this with product packaging/commercials; and to reduce tension]
- 6.) Provide pleasant surprises
- 7.) Deliver service heroics
- Steve explains that there are two halves to an employee’s job role: Job function AND Job essence. (The fact that many managers overlook the second half of every employee’s job role – job essence – contributes to the rarity of exceptional customer service.)
- To build this sort of culture Steve believes it starts with leadership. What they (employees) see (leadership’s modelling), is what you’ll get (in terms of performance).
- However, Steve adds that every employee also leads him/herself. Managers and supervisors cannot determine an employee’s performance/behaviour. They can only influence the employee’s performance/behaviour. Ultimately, an employee chooses for him/herself whether or not they will express genuine interest in a customer or go out of their way to serve them.
- Steve would also like to see firms start to measure an employees performance relative to nit just their jib function but their job essence too.
- Steve goes on to emphasise that the most important thing to remember is that exceptional customer service doesn’t happen by chance. It happens by choice.
- Check out Steve’s book: Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary and his blog, which can be found at: www.stevecurtin.com
Note: Steve was kind enough (as noted in the interview to send over his notes for the interview to help me with transcription. What a great guy! As a result, there’s loads more insight in the actual podcast than there is in the highlights).
About Steve
Steve worked for Marriott International for 20 years in a variety positions at hotels as well as at corporate headquarters. The first half of his career was spent at the property level working in hotel operations, sales and marketing, and human resources. The second half of his career he spent working for headquarters presenting national core programmes for management associates until 2006.
In 2007, he started his current company, Steve Curtin, Customer Enthusiast! Since that time, he has been speaking, writing, and consulting on the topic of customer service for clients in the hospitality, tourism, healthcare, and retail industries.
You should check out Steve’s book: Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary, his blog (www.stevecurtin.com), follow him on Twitter @enthused and connect with him on Linked here.
Photo Credit: mrehan via Compfight cc
9 Comments
Hello Adrian
It occurs to me that Steve is correct when he says that exceptional customer service does not happen by chance it happens by choice. And I am not convinced that Steve’s recipe will make a real lasting difference. Why? Everything shows up for a certain context. Which is my way of saying that the issue is not with employees, nor job function, nor essence. I say the issue is with context.
Today, in the vast majority of organisations customer service does not show up from a context of genuine service. On the contrary, customer services shows up from a context of reducing interactions with customers, getting them off the phone as quickly as possible, and minimising the costs associated with customer service. If you notice that then you notice that the context that gives rise to customer service is ‘we don’t want our customers to contact us, we prefer not to provide service, and if we have to do so then let’s do it as cheaply as possible’.
So the access to transforming the quality of service rendered by an organisation, any organisation, is to switch from this default context to a more powerful one. Bill Price did that with Amazon with his context of ‘the best service is no service’. Which meant dealing with all the issues – orders, status, billing…- that led customers to call in to customer services. By fixing the issues Amazon increased workability and reduced the occasions when customers had to call Amazon because something had gone wrong. Notice the context was not about reducing the costs of customer service. No, the context was ‘the best service is one where everything works so well that customers never need to call customer service’. Which explains why Amazon is consistently towards the top in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
All the best
maz
Maz, you do know that Mr. Price is really saying, “The best service is a seamless self-service shopping experience,” right? And since Amazon takes pride in its efficient 1-click virtual shopping experience, this makes sense.
To apply this notion broadly, whether your selling merchandise online or offering a vacation experience at a 5-star resort, is a mistake.
Definitions of ‘customer service’ vary, but my definition is: a voluntary act that demonstrates a genuine desire to satisfy, if not delight, a customer.
If your goal is to raise customer service quality, using the “recipe” outlined in my book (specifically, in Ch. 9) will indeed make a real lasting difference. However, blindly accepting Mr. Price’s claim that “the best service is no service” is a recipe for disaster.
Hi Maz, Steve,
I don’t think that keeping a keen eye on operational costs and the provision of great service are mutually exclusive. Doesn’t Amazon prove this? Also, Aviva using a systems approach has achieved exceptional results (check out: https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/blog/using-systems-thinking-to-improve-customer-satisfaction-and-employee-engagement-interview-with-rob-brown-of-aviva/)
Adrian
Hello Steve
I thank you for taking the time to respond. I value the contribution. Clearly, the Amazon game is distinct to say the Four Seasons Game of customer service.
My broader point is best expressed by Werner Erhard’s “The context is decisive, always”. Which is to say that what really matters is the ‘surface’ upon which the game of customer service is placed. Think about the game of tennis. The content for a game of singles is two players, rackets, tennis balls, umpire, serving, strokes, volleying etc. Yet, a game of tennis played on grass is very different to game of tennis played on clay to a game of tennis played on an indoor court. The surface makes a huge difference. The guy that plays great on grass does not necessarily play great on a clay court. The same applies to the game of customer service.
Some organisations show up and play the game of customer service from a context of ‘lets take great care of our customers so that they remember us, come back and bring their friends with them’. Others don’t. And that makes a huge difference.
All the best and I wish you every success with your book and your living!
Maz
I love this point:
1.) Why is customer service so predictably poor? The reason that you and I, as customers, consistently receive predictably poor customer service is because exceptional customer service is voluntary. Employees don’t have to deliver it. And most don’t.
Unfortunately, we are reminded of this daily.
It’s a great reminder that hiring the right people is so important to the customer experience.
Annette 🙂
Hi Annette,
Thank you for highlighting that point.
Personally, I think it is a voluntary act for both owners/leadership and employees. Therefore, most employees don’t deliver it because their owners/leaders don’t or the owners/leaders have not hired the right people.
Adrian
Great point, Adrian. If leadership doesn’t model the behavior they want to see/expect, then why should employees follow.
Annette 🙂
Employers often don’t model this behaviour, mostly it’s all about the bottom line and customers are just an annoyance to them. As a person who believes in people and truly cares about them I find it increasingly discouraging having to explain why I am delivering extraordinary customer service to employers who really don’t care.
It seems to me that most employers only care about money, not customer service. Their short sighted attitude makes it extremely hard to keep delivering what I know to be right – whilst exceeding KPIs – when there is no support or understanding of what I’m doing. I do it because it’s who I am.
Maz, different playing fields require different skills and approaches, but always underlined by what the customer wants. Ask questions, listen and then deliver. I have used the same skills in a retail environment, in real estate and in helping people look for work. I modify my approach for each customer – some like to talk a lot, some don’t etc. so these skills truly are transferable.
Mary 🙂
Hi Mary,
Thank you for your comment and contribution. All I would say is: keep up the good work. If it feels right then there can’t much wrong with it.
All the best,
Adrian