Filed under: Above & Beyond, Client Services, Customer Service, Customer Service Training, Patient Experience, Secret Service Certification, World-Class
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Walking the Talk – This past March (2013) The DiJulius Group held a Secret Service Certification class, where we had over 30 attendees for this two-day advance Customer service Train the Trainer. During the class, unknown to nearly everyone, including myself, one of the attendees, a sweet woman from Connecticut, stepped out of the room because she wasn’t feeling well. Next thing we hear is that she has been admitted in the Cleveland Clinic Hospital, where she apparently had a minor stroke. She spent four days in the hospital. Thankfully today she is doing incredibly well and on the road to a full recovery; however, I want to share a letter she sent to me about two weeks after she got back to Connecticut. I feel so proud of the amazing team we have here at The DiJulius Group. It is one thing to talk about it; it is another thing to live it.
John,
I am sending this email to let you know how much I appreciate what David and Nicole did for me while
 I was in Cleveland. As you know, my visit there turned into a hospital stay.
I was at the second day of the certification class and started to feel very strange. I did not know what was happening, but I knew I needed to get to the hospital. I left the classroom and went out into the lobby and asked David to take me. He never asked any questions as to why, he just jumped into action. From that point on, he took such good care of me, and I am not someone that he knew outside of the business.
Once I realized that it was very serious and that I would be staying in the hospital, I let him know and from the time that I went up to my room, he almost never left my side. He knew that I was all-alone in Cleveland, and he knew that I was very scared. He even made sure that he kept in contact with my sister in Connecticut, giving her the status of my care. At one point in my stay, I had to have an incision in my scalp due to a cyst that had developed. He immediately rushed to my side and
 held my hand. Nicole was also there for me. She came to visit and sit with me, brought me some fabulous hair products, got me earrings so I could feel like a human being and went to pick up my prescriptions, not once but twice, so I would not be without the medication I needed. I was scheduled to be discharged on Friday and fly home. My flight was cancelled so she quickly found a hotel for me and took me and made sure I was settled in my room. David and Nicole are still checking up on me today.
I now know that God puts people in your path for a reason, and that David and Nicole are my guardian angels and lifelong friends. Even if I don’t come back for the rest of my class, I will be back to see all of you.
Thank you so much for everything.
Sandra
Congratulations - David and Nicole, you exemplify world-class personally and professionally!
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John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on Customer experience trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s #1 Customer Service Conference.
Filed under: Customer Experience, Customer Service, Customer Service Training, Employee Engagement, Secret Service Summit, Zappos
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Measuring the wrong metrics can damage your Customer’s experience - The two most popular performance metrics call centers and Customer service reps are tracked by are average call time and time-to-resolution. These are dinosaur drivers that management needs to move away from. They are not service friendly. They make your reps solely “task focused” and dehumanize their roles, which dramatically reduces their work satisfaction and increases turnover.
Rewarding the right behavior produces the right results – Customer Service reps are not machines, they are people who enjoy building relationships. Also noted in this article is how CSRs at Zappos are expected to spend at least 80 percent of their time in Customer-facing interactions. It doesn’t matter if that’s one call, or 100. Reps who achieve this target get to spin “the wheel of happiness” to win gift cards and other rewards. Those who fall below the 80 percent line receive coaching.
World-Class Customer service organizations advertise the least - Zappos uses little advertising or traditional marketing. Their marketing is word of mouth and Customer loyalty. They do this by measuring four factors on a 100-point scale called the “Happiness Experience Form.”
On-going coaching for poorer performances – A rep who averages less than 50 points per month on the Happiness Experience Form will receive extra training, while top performers are rewarded with paid hours off and other incentives. This article has many more golden nuggets. Check it out: “A Zappos lesson in Customer Service Metrics.”
Customer Service Crisis…
Too Fat To Tan - After a woman purchased a tanning package, she was told she was too fat to tan at a tanning salon, and the salon would not give her a refund. The employee said, “Sorry, but I’m not going to let you tan today because we’ve just implemented a new policy where anyone over 230 pounds can’t go in one of our beds.” When the Customer asked for a refund, she was told we don’t give refunds. When the local news got involved, they called the tanning salon manager, Gus, and asked him if he would refund the Customer’s tanning package. Gus suggested that the Customer contact her credit card company and try to cancel the transaction. Watch the news report, Too Fat to tan.
How it should have been handled - It won’t shock you that the Better Business Bureau gives this tanning salon an ‘F’ rating. I totally understand safety first, as well as company restrictions for maintaining their equipment. It is not the policy that was wrong, but how they handled the situation. They have a standup bed that was not working that day, so this Customer’s only option was the laydown bed. All they had to do was apologize for the inconvenience that the salon caused because their standup bed wasn’t working, and add a complimentary tanning session to her package for the inconvenience of not being able to tan that day. And more importantly, educate the Customers about any restrictions before they purchase a package. The 2013 Secret Service Summit - This Friday is the last day for the early bird special pricing for tickets to the 2013 Secret Service Summit. Only once a year we bring you the best speakers and authors in Customer service and motivation. This year’s Summit is in Cleveland Ohio on November 4&5. For up to the minute details and promos like our Facebook page at Facebook.com/secretservicesummit
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John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on Customer experience trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s #1 Customer Service Conference.
Filed under: ACSI, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Employee Engagement, John Robert's Spa, Service Aptitude
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Blame it on the youth- Due to the fact that technology has dramatically reduced face-to-face interaction, the younger
Big Anomaly – This has been perplexing me for years, and it is the one thing about Customer service that I just can’t figure out. It goes against all conventional logic. I have found, in my own two companies (The DiJulius Group & John Robert’s Spa = 150 team members) as well as in all the world-class Customer service companies I have worked with and studied, that of their front-line employees, a large percentage of them fall into the 20-30-age range. They deliver outstanding Customer service! In many cases the younger generation is better at hospitality than the previous one who was forced to have more human interaction.
How can it be – If the younger generation grows up with less face-to-face interaction and as a result has weaker people skills entering the workforce in their early twenties, then how is it possible that certain ones become world-class in Customer service? Is it because there has been such innate interactive deficiency that once they get it, they are like a man in a desert finally getting water to quench his thirst? It is happening all over the place? Zappos.com, Chick-fil-A, John Robert’s Spa, Nordstrom, The Ritz-Carlton, and the Disney’s of the world have young, fully engaged team members.
The younger generation is hungry for hospitality – Hiring is a big part of it; however, just as important is their service aptitude training. Think about this: If today’s younger generation lacks the skills gained from human interactions, who is responsible for improving their people skills and increasing their service aptitude? The businesses that hire them! We can’t skip this generation and hope the next will be any better at people skills. We need to have better training programs, not just training on product knowledge and the technical side of the job, but also training on the soft skills. The companies that deliver world-class Customer service are the companies that understand this fact and provide training in Customer service skills.
Nine worst Customer service retailers – The good news is, Customer satisfaction with retailers is at an all-time high. The bad news is, some well-known brands are not pleasing their Customers. Check out who the nine retailers with the worst Customer service were. Are you surprised by who is on the list?
Ecommerce tops brick & mortar – The trend continues: online retailers consistently out-perform brick and mortar businesses in Customer satisfaction. Retailers wonder and complain about why Customers are “showrooming” (shopping at stores and then making the purchase online) and defecting to the Internet for their purchases. Now they know why. Some retailers have even taken drastic measures to deter Customers from showrooming and have started to penalize them by charging a “just looking fee”. In fact, of the nine retail companies with the worst American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) scores, only one was an online retailer, Netflix.
From first to worst – The surprising thing is, Netflix outperformed the average Internet retailer in Customer satisfaction for four years, and in 2009 was #1 retailer. But in 2011 and 2012, the video streaming company has been the lowest-rated internet retailer.
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John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on Customer experience trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s #1 Customer Service Conference.
Filed under: Customer Experience, Customer Service, Service Aptitude, Social Media
Sheer Madness – Lululemon, an athletic apparel retail store, is currently the punch line of many jokes as a result of extremely poor judgment in how they recently handled the recall of yoga pants. Social media has sent it viral. You see, when women came back to the store to return the too-sheer yoga pants (see-through), the Customers were asked to try on the pants and bend over in front of sales associates, who would assess them before a return was permitted. Check out this hilarious story.
Hallmark testing for high service aptitude – Amy Mendenhall, Customer Experience Manager at Hallmark Cards Inc., recently shared with me (see below a sample question and the results of how people answered) how she tests the service aptitude on a weekly basis of their store managers by sending out polling questions. Click here to see the entire Service Aptitude Poll, which is an excellent tool. 
Fast Food = Eat it Fast – McDonald’s, the fast-food giant, whose restaurant sales in the U.S. have been on adownward slope, is pushing franchisees to improve staffing and service amid mounting complaints about rude employees. McDonald’s executives recently shared that 1 in 5 Customer complaints are related to friendliness issues, “and it’s increasing.” The top complaint is “rude or unprofessional employees.”
No Industry Immunity- Companies like Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, and Pret A Manger have changed the landscape and expectations by proving Customers can experience world-class hospitality at a quick service restaurant, which is forcing companies like McDonald’s to reinvent themselves. It appears senior leadership has decided to focus on Customer satisfaction as a real driver to rebuild the brand and build sales. I have consulted with McDonald’s Australia and have been extremely impressed at their aggressive approach to building a superior Customer service brand in their markets.
The best way to retain clients is to not lose them in the first place. |
John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on Customer experience trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s #1 Customer Service Conference.
Filed under: Above & Beyond, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Service Aptitude
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“Hi Kyle Anderson (323), I hope you enjoyed your gf’s bday and the flowers that you didn’t bring when you no-showed for your 815 res. Thanks,” snarked one tweet.
Restaurant manager Noah Ellis defended this approach. “Invariably, the *%#holes who decide to no-show, or cancel 20 minutes before their reservation (because one of their friends made a reservation somewhere else) ruin restaurants (as a whole) for the people who make a reservation and do their best to honor it.” Check out the full story. LA restaurant tweets Customer’s names that are no shows
Brand Assassination – While it is frustrating to have Customers who “no show” prime appointments and the business loses sales as a result, (i.e. I know this first hand…John Robert’s Spa), shaming your Customers is not the answer. There are numerous other better approaches, i.e. taking a credit card for a guarantee.
No problem is a Big problem - The biggest street slang terms used in every business today are the responses, “no
I recently read a great blog by Joe Schumacker, No problem, Big problem (read the entire short blog) that articulated this really well.
“No Problem” is a problem on two levels. The “No Problem” auto-response places the staff member’s comfort ahead of service to the Customer. Expanding the auto-response for full meaning, “No Problem” becomes; “You are not creating a problem for me”. As a Customer I want to feel that my interests are first and foremost in the mind of the staff member, not that I may have inconvenienced a staff member by being a Customer. The second problem with “No Problem” is that it consists of two negative words.
OnStar doesn’t help a non-subscriber who locked baby in car - A Customer had a vehicle with General Motors’ OnStar system that provides emergency and roadside assistance; however, this Customer decided not to continue to subscribe to the service. Then she accidentally locked her purse, car keys, and her infant daughter, in the car. When she contacted OnStar and asked them to help, just this once, because there was a baby in the car, She blogged about the incident:
“I then called and tried to get OnStar to assist us but the bastards wouldn’t help because I didn’t have a subscription. Now, I know they have a connection to my car because OnStar was on it when I bought it but they claimed there was nothing they could do.”
Swing & Miss - This type of hero opportunity is a world-class Customer service organization’s dream. OnStar had an incredible opportunity to deliver a huge above & beyond opportunity with a potential Customer that I am sure would have been shared all over social media. They need to be able to have this capability both technically and by empowering their front-line employees to capitalize on these moments.
Do you have the right team? - The employee experience drives the Customer experience. Join me this May 22-23 in Cleveland Ohio at our first Hiring & Training for Service Aptitude class. Learn how to attract the people with the right service DNA. Prepare your company for the Customer service revolution. Limited seats available.
The experience is remembered long after the price is forgotten |
John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius Group, the leading customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on customer experience trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s #1 Customer Service Conference.
Filed under: Carter Mario, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Joe Calloway, Policy, Secret Service Summit, Service Aptitude
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Spend less on advertising – Research has shown that world-class Customer service organizations spend less on advertising than the rest of their industry. Why? Because they have an unpaid sales force — their existing Customers. See: Smoking Gun blog post
Brand Evangelists - Carter Mario Law Firm, specializing in personal injury, has six locations throughout Connecticut and is a classic example of this theory. When Carter Mario started tracking the source of incoming calls, (the backbone
A world-class hospitality law firm – What changed or what was the driving force behind this movement? “While we thought we were client centric, we realized we were relative to injury attorneys, which means we were the best of a lousy group,” says Carter Mario. “In 2007 our entire organization including receptionists, in-take specialists, administrative positions, and attorneys, became obsessed with being a world-class Customer service company, benchmarked against anyone in any other industry.” That they did! Carter Mario Law Firms are well known for their Customer service. I featured them in my 2nd book, What’s the Secret?, and Carter Mario himself shared his story at our Secret Service Summit, where his company won the Secret Service System Award, presented to only one amazing Customer service organization per year.”
Store Charges Customers ‘Just Looking’ Fee – A store has had it with Customers walking around the store without buying anything. As a result, Redditor Barrett Fox posted a picture of a sign informing shoppers of a new “just looking fee” at a specialty food store in Brisbane, Australia. The fee is $5.00. I can’t make this stuff up. Look at the sign below. Begging to go out of business – This is one of the worst policies I have ever heard of. No business makes it very longtreating Customers like this. If people are not buying from you, you need to figure out why; is it price, product, or service? Then fix it, don’t punish the Customer. Obviously they haven’t heard of the saying, “Don’t punish 98% of your Customers for what you are afraid of 2% might do.”
Be the Best at What Matters Most – What if you, your team, or your entire organization had absolute clarity aboutwhat was most important, and that’s where all of your energy was focused? Imagine the force multiplier of that kind of shared sense of direction, purpose, and priorities. My mentor, idol and friend, Joe Calloway has just released his newest book; Be the Best at What Matters Most! Be the Best at What Matters Most reveals the one essential strategy for business leaders, entrepreneurs and those who aspire to lead. Simplify the way you think about your business. Success isn’t about doing everything. It’s about doing the most important things. To get Joe’s new book click here
The employee experience drives the Customer experience - This May 22-23 learn how to attract and hire only the people who share your company’s service vision and find out the benefits of retaining these people within your organization. Acceptance into this next certification class is by application only. Call David at 440-443-0022 for more information.
Real Customer service should be called ‘custom’ service. |
John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius Group, the leading customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on customer experience trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s #1 Customer Service Conference.
Filed under: CSAT, Customer Service, Customer Service Consulting, Service Aptitude, What's the Secret?, World-Class
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What’s the real Service Aptitude Level of your company?
Company Service Aptitude Test (C-SAT) – When it comes to Customer service, do you know the rating for yourcompany, location or department? The DiJulius Group has created an incredibly powerful tool called the Company Service Aptitude Test. The C-SAT not only pinpoints the Service Aptitude Level of your organization, but more importantly, it lets management know where the strengths and opportunities are in order to get to the next level. The C-SAT is based on the Ten Commandments to providing a World-Class Customer experience from the groundbreaking book What’s the Secret? These are the 10 principles shared by every great Customer service organization.
 There are five levels of Customer service – It will take approximately 15 – 20 minutes to answer all the questions. Scores may then be averaged to find an overall company score. Every manager in your organization should take the C-SAT. These are the 10 principals shared by every great Customer service organization. Now your management can take the C-SAT.NEW Customized Group C-SAT – The DiJulius Group is now able to compile and group the results for your entire organization or business unit. When you have every manager and senior executive take this test and then compare the results and individual answers to each question, you will be shocked at how they differ. For example, some leaders will give the highest rating (Extremely Accurate) while others will give the lowest rating (Extremely Inaccurate) for the identical question. It is critically important to uncover the reason why. Obviously someone, or maybe many people, have the wrong assumption that needs to be addressed. See sample report on one question below:
Shocking varying results – In the example above, out of 20 managers who took this C-SAT for the same company, 3 managers (or 15%) answered “Extremely Accurate” for this questions, while 4 managers (or 20%) answered “Extremely Inaccurate”. Those are the complete opposite answers for the same question and for the same company. When you go over this report with your management team, you not only uncover which parts of your organization’s Customer service need to be addressed, you uncover inconsistencies of management thinking. This unique reporting service comes with a one-on-one consultation with one of our world-class consultants to go over the immediate opportunities that might surface. Contact David at david@thedijuliusgroup.com to learn how this tool can be your first stepping-stone to becoming a World-Class Customer service organization.
Create raving team members and they will create raving clients |
John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius Group, the leading customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on customer experience trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s #1 Customer Service Conference.
