So, it’s time for some good news in customer service. One of my clients just emailed to share with me how TD Bank ATMS gave out surprises that stunned customers. The acts of surprise made me smile, cry and thank God for such unexpected joy. I’d like to try to make you smile too. Take a look. You might even cry like I did.
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One of my clients shared this video with me this morning and I was so moved by WestJet’s amazing WOW that I just had to share this video on my blog. I got chills when I watched the video and I literally finished the video with tears of joy streaming down my cheeks.
Enjoy…and be inspired!
Last night I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at the Atlanta Consumers’ Choice Awards event. I met some amazing people who are responsible for driving the customer experience for such companies as Mercedes-Benz, Atlanta Special Events, and so many more.
This night was so great for me, because I love sitting with smart business owners who are passionate about achieving growth based solely on their customer experience strategy. I could have networked all night at this event! Well, I did actually.
For the benefit of my wonderful audience and for you, my blog readers, I am posting my slide deck from my keynote for the Atlanta Consumers’ Choice Awards. Enjoy. Learn. Share.
When I managed a contact center, I actually had our phones set to come on 5 minutes before our posted hours and to stay on 5 minutes past our posted hours. I did this because I wanted to surprise and delight our early bird customers and I wanted to offer relief to frantic customers who just couldn’t call before quitting time.
A great service experience from top to bottom has always been a fierce focus of mine. Today I discovered a grocery store that shares my idea of opening up just a little earlier for customers and staying open later. I’ll get to that in a minute. First let me tell you about a service fail.
My daughter and I walked into a drug store 15 minutes before closing one night. The lights were already dimmed and the closing announcement blasted over the PA system at least 3 times during our short trip into the store. Employees were busy shutting down registers and scurrying around to get things locked down by 9pm. My daughter and I felt like unwelcome guests at a party and we felt compelled to rush our shopping so that the workers could get out of the building no later than 9:01pm.
Intrigued by the unusual hours, I went to the company’s website and found this:
If your contact center hours are 8am – 7pm and someone calls at 6:59pm, they deserve your full attention and a complete and enthusiastic service experience. Do a little extra and you’ll be sure to give your customers a memorable and refreshing customer experience that they’ll rave about.
If you’re into organic and natural food, you might want to check out Natural Grocers. Great selection and really great prices. Not to mention, wicked-cool store hours.
Imagine sitting in a local coffee shop that’s nestled in a bookstore, and talking over a latte with Myra about ways to help your employees deliver the best possible customer experience, and ways to help reduce stress on your employees as they deal with difficult customers.
Every week, often literally from a coffee shop, Myra gives you ideas that in one way or another are actionable towards improving your customer experience.
Sign up and join Myra over coffee every week.
This morning I took a team from one of my client’s branches on a field trip. We’re working to create the best possible customer experience in my client’s organization and I believe one way to achieve this goal is to learn from the best. So, I got everyone out of the office and we went to the Apple store and Barnes and Noble.
Before the fieldtrip, I gave the team a list of questions and observation points so that we’d make the most productive use of our time. At the Apple store, my team observed greeting upon store entrance, analyzed employee interactions and even got to see an Apple employee eloquently handle a not so happy customer. After the fieldtrip, we met in a circle in the mall and discussed our observations and explored ways they can take back some great ideas and adopt and apply them in their organization.
We left Apple and headed across the street to Barnes and Noble. The people at Barnes and Noble were so gracious and allowed us to explore, take up a lot of space, meet to discuss our observations and they even let us take photos. My team really walked away with a lot of customer service insights from Barnes and Noble.
I love what I do! It’s great to make customer experience training and consulting hands-on, relevant and even fun.
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Generation Y is highly tech driven and because they spend so much of their time communicating through text and social media, human interaction isn’t always their preferred method for getting customer service. When designing your customer experience, look for ways to meet the unique needs of generation Y by having appealing self-service options available. By appealing, I mean tech savvy options like QR codes, fast and efficient apps and pretty much any option that involves smartphones.
Apple lets customers scan products and pay right from their phones.
Apple does a great job of offering self-service options that are aimed squarely at Generation Y (and X). If you’ve ever been in an Apple store, you know that their stores are always jam-packed. As much as I love browsing in the Apple store, there are times when I want to get in and out. Like the day I just stopped in to pick up a case for my MacBook Air. Because Apple has given careful thought to self-service options that appeal to tech-savvy shoppers like me, I was able to pull out my iPhone and scan my product right from the display. The product pulled up on my phone via the Apple store app and I was able to pay right from my phone and walk out, bypassing all of the crowds.
While in the Apple store, customers can not only purchase and pay for products right from their phones, but they can also see how may customers are ahead of them for live help or they can see how many minutes before the next Genius support appointment opens up.
How might you rethink your customer experience to deliver a faster, more enjoyable experience that requires less human interaction? Don’t think tech-savvy self service options are limited to retail. If you are a contact center, library, bank, insurance company – any company that serves customers, I want you to think out of the box and consider how you might create an easier, faster, more enjoyable experience for your customers using QR codes, apps, smart phones or social media. Get creative.
Myra Golden has spent 15 years benchmarking, interviewing and mystery shopping the best service companies in the world and in her keynotes she shares her insights to help her clients improve their own customer experiences. In her inspiring and riveting keynotes, Myra shares specific customer experience design details from the best service companies of our time: Apple, Zappos.com, Starbucks and Disney. Your audience will walk away with 4 powerful deliverables to help them create the best possible customer experience in their own companies. Explore Myra’s keynotes here.
So, I sit down for a quick breakfast in the airport at a friendly joint called Timberline Steaks and the hostess hands me a sanitizing wipe with my menu. What a wonderful value-added service! Airports are filthy. Our roller bags reek with germs. Do you ever think about how many people have sat in seat 14C before you? Giving customers sanitizer in an airport restaurant is a warm gesture. It says, “We know you’re in a high-traffic area filled with germs and that you probably didn’t have a chance to wash before joining us.“ It says they care enough to be proactive, to go the extra mile.
What little thing might you add to your service experience to show customers you can be proactive and that you care? Think about that. Come up with at least one value-add and then do it. It doesn’t have to be something tangible. It can be as simple as committing to greet customers within 10feet or 10 seconds of them entering your store. Perhaps it ‘s taking a few seconds to make small talk with a customer over the phone. Get creative. 🙂
