Amaze Every Customer Every Time

by Shep Hyken

  These are the kinds of consumer perceptions that advertising agencies get paid millions of dollars to shape. We can shape them for a lot less with something as simple as a smile, or an offer to help the customer on the way out of the store, or a personalized follow-up via email.

  One of the things you notice immediately about shopping at Ace Hardware is that the associates who work there are often very concerned about helping you get your purchase into your car, helping you load whatever it is you’ve bought into your trunk or backseat. That’s no accident. They’re trained to do that, and it only takes a few minutes searching customer reviews online to figure out that people like this aspect of shopping at Ace—a lot!

  Does it take a little more time and effort to help the customer load up the car? Sure. But Ace has made the shrewd strategic decision that making that investment makes all the sense in the world. Leaving the customer with a positive last impression does three important things. First, it helps to overcome any service missteps that may have been made along the way, which is an important consideration when the customer is interacting with multiple people. Second, it gives us the chance to continue the one-on-one conversation with the customer in the parking lot (or wherever), and more interaction is better than less interaction. Third, it gives the customer a reason to think good thoughts about us on the drive back home!

  By the same token, a botched last impression can undo everything positive that has happened to the consumer up to that point! All that the customer will remember is the scowl and the refusal she got when she asked for help loading a big box into the car. That Moment of Misery really can erode all of the positive interactions encountered during the visit.

  The last impression is a powerful tactic that too many people and companies overlook. Anything less than a strong last impression is simply … not amazing!

  YOUR AMAZEMENT TOOLBOX

  First impressions are important, but the last impression we leave with the customer will leave the most lasting impression.

  A strong last impression can help overcome any service missteps that may have been made along the way.

  A positive last impression gives the customer a reason to think good thoughts about us on the drive back home!

  THE DRILL

  What do you say or do to ensure that your last impression with the customer is a positive one?

  BE ACCOUNTABLE

  * * *

  Assume full ownership of the customer’s experience.

  ACCOUNTABILITY IS A HIGHER LEVEL of being reliable and dependable. It means we take deep personal responsibility for what we do for our customers. It means we take credit for all of the good and accept responsibility for any of the bad. When we are accountable, we assume that nothing should stand between our customers and complete satisfaction, and we start considering ourselves personally responsible, not just for meeting their expectations (that’s a given), but for exceeding them. How do we do that? By assuming full ownership of the customer’s experience. As a result of that personal ownership, a very strong bond develops between us and our customers.

  Accountable people hold much longer relationships with their customers than people who aren’t accountable do; that’s because the trust in the relationship reaches an extraordinary level. The customers come to feel that it would be difficult or impossible to find someone who cared as much, or delivered as much, or went above and beyond the call as often.

  As Bert, an Ace customer in Seattle, wrote:

  If you wanted to build and decorate your own unicorn, the unbelievably helpful and knowledgeable people working at this store would be able to cheerfully assist you in the process. I’m not kidding. They’d all be like, “Well, first you’re going to need to know if you want to make a pneumatic unicorn or a hydraulic unicorn. I can tell you the pros and cons of each, and then send you over to the paint department where Jane will help you choose which sparkly color to use for the horn. You’ll want to consider an outdoor, weatherproof paint for that.” Then the guy would collect all the pieces of your project, package them neatly, and meet you at the front register with helpful pamphlets called “The Plus Side of Rechargeable Unicorns” and “Weaving Realistic Unicorn Fur by Hand.”

  Then, I suppose, the guy from Ace calls back a week later to check in and see how the unicorn project is going! Now that’s accountability! The customer obviously made up this example to make his point. It’s also obvious, though, that he had had the experience of having someone at Ace assume full ownership of his experience in the store.

  Here’s another example. I once told the front-desk clerk at a hotel that my nightstand light was burnt out. She said, “I’ll take care of it.” Now, that doesn’t mean she went up to my room and changed the bulb. No, she called the maintenance department to report the problem. Then she called them back an hour later to make sure the bulb was changed. When she saw me walk by later that evening she told me, “I took care of the burnt-out bulb in your nightstand lamp. And, if you have any other problems, don’t hesitate to call me. I’m on duty until midnight, and if I’m not here, any one of my colleagues can help you.” That’s ownership!

  The point is that it’s not just the follow-through that should be amazing. It’s also the follow-up. You do what is expected and then follow up to make sure everything has been done right and the customer is happy.

  Most companies would be content if their customers thought of them as reliable and dependable. They should be shooting for something higher: accountability. Accountability raises the bar. It means you own the customer’s experience. In turn, the customer enjoys this stronger relationship and reciprocates with repeat business, long-term loyalty, and evangelism.

  YOUR AMAZEMENT TOOLBOX

  Accountability is a higher level of being reliable and dependable.

  When we are accountable, we assume full ownership of the customer’s experience.

  When we are accountable, a very strong bond develops between us and our customers.

  Accountability is follow-through and follow-up. Do what is expected. Then check in to make sure the customer is happy.

  THE DRILL

  Can you think of a time when you assumed personal ownership of solving a problem for a customer?

  Did you follow up to make sure the issue was resolved to the customer’s complete satisfaction? What was the customer’s response?

  THE CUSTOMER IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT

  * * *

  If the customer is wrong, let him be wrong with dignity. After all, he is still the customer!

  THERE’S A POPULAR PIECE of bad customer service “advice” I cannot rebut often enough, and will always take the opportunity to do so. No matter what you may have heard to the contrary, the customer is NOT always right.

  As people who live in the real world, and who have to deal with other people in that real world, we need to accept that it just doesn’t do us or our customers any good to pretend that they never make mistakes. They do. Acting like they couldn’t ever be wrong usually makes everyone’s job harder and more stressful, however …

  What we do need to accept is that, even when a customer is wrong, that person is still the customer, and still deserves to be treated with respect!

  A lot of frontline service people get stressed during exchanges in which they know the customer is wrong, and some even emotionally escalate the exchange in an attempt to settle the matter once and for all. They usually do—by losing the customer!

  Mavis Knowles, an Ace manager in Dallas Bay, Tennessee, shared a great story that illustrates exactly the right way to respond when you know or strongly suspect that a customer is wrong. Mavis was getting ready to go on her lunch break when Frank, one of her customers, made his way up to the counter and told her that he had a problem: Ace had recently rescreened one of his daughter’s aluminum-frame screen windows and, in the process, had stretched it out of shape.

  Now, you don’t have to be an expert in window rescreening to know that this complaint of Frank’s was not very
plausible. You don’t bend or reshape the frame in any way when you replace the screen in a removable window. But Frank was insistent: Ace had damaged the window. It no longer fit where it was supposed to fit.

  Frank had the window screen with him. Mavis looked it over. It showed no signs of damage at all.

  It’s at this point that a lot of frontline service providers might have made the mistake of getting into an argument about who was right and who was wrong. Mavis could have done that. She could have said, “I’m sorry, Frank, I’m about to go on my lunch hour, and you can talk to someone else here about this if you want, but I can guarantee you that nothing we did while rescreening this window changed its shape in any way.”

  She could have said that. But she didn’t. What Mavis said was, “Well, I’m leaving for lunch now, anyway. How far away are you? Maybe we can take a look at what the problem is.”

  Wow!

  Frank’s daughter’s house was only a block away. So Mavis followed him over there. When she got to the room where Frank was having the problem, she noticed that as he tried to insert the screen, he was trying to force it into the upper part of the window, which was not where it belonged. She asked if she could give it a try. Frank said, “Sure.”

  Mavis easily slid the screen window into the lower compartment, where it fit perfectly! She had solved the problem—and won a customer for life.

  Maybe you’re not ready or willing to make on-site inspections of your customer’s possible error points, as Mavis was. But you should be ready and willing to treat the customer with respect, give him or her the benefit of the doubt, and avoid escalating the discussion into a debate or an argument over who’s “right.” No matter who “wins” that conversation, you will lose!

  It can’t be said often enough: The customer is NOT always right, but they are always the customer. So, if they are wrong, let them be wrong with dignity and respect.

  YOUR AMAZEMENT TOOLBOX

  Even when customers are wrong, you still have to treat them with respect. After all, they are your customers!

  If you know or strongly suspect that a customer is in error, avoid escalating into an argument over who’s right.

  Give customers who are wrong the benefit of the doubt until you can identify what the problem really is.

  The customer is NOT always right, but he or she is always the customer. So, if customers are wrong, let them be wrong with dignity.

  THE DRILL

  Can you think of a time when you knew that the customer was not right? How did you respond? How did that make the customer feel?

  Are there any common mistakes your customers make? If so, how do you respond in a way that lets them be wrong with dignity and respect?

  BOUNCE BACK

  * * *

  No one promised customer service was always going to be easy. Learn to bounce back!

  EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE we’re going to find ourselves in a conversation with a customer that takes an unexpected wrong turn, despite our very best efforts. Or maybe we just hit a “bump in the road,” for whatever reason, and we know that the service we just provided was not particularly amazing. The bottom line is the customer is upset, even angry.

  It happens.

  And when it does, our job is actually pretty simple: Bounce Back.

  There’s a four-step process for Bouncing Back from even a major lapse in communication that leads to a failure to amaze your customer. Here it is:

  Step one: Disengage. You know when an exchange with a customer is going nowhere. If it’s still possible, try to hand the troublesome discussion off to someone else on your team before it deteriorates any further. If you can’t transfer the discussion over to someone else, apologize to the customer (even if—especially if—you think you’re “in the right”) and ask for a time-out. Get the appropriate contact info. Assure the customer that you or someone else will circle back at a specific time to address the customer’s issue. DO NOT engage in an argument about who’s “right.” Separate yourself from this conversation.

  Step two: Cool off. Take some time away from the situation. You’ve just given yourself a little distance. Make the most of it. Take a break. Don’t mentally replay the whole drama you just left. Do something else.

  Step three: Learn from what happened. Once you’ve had time to decompress, ask yourself: How would you do things differently with this customer if you had it to do all over again? Would you begin the conversation differently? Offer a different set of possible solutions to the consumer? Ask a different question?

  Step four: Share what you learned. Tell your boss. Tell your colleagues. Make some notes. Use what you’ve learned about the experience to make your company’s process more customer focused. If you use your difficult experience to help create a stronger set of processes for your customer, then everybody wins. As Ace’s John Surane, Senior Vice President, Merchandising, Advertising, Marketing and Paint, put it, “What we do on a day-in and day-out basis is bigger than any one experience.” What he meant was that the day-to-day process, the accumulated system of best practices that Ace has built up over decades, is strong enough to allow the store to bounce back even when the individual has an “oops” moment.

  For example, Samantha, an Ace customer in Healdsburg, California, asked the Ace associate she saw at the front counter where she could find the patio section—and didn’t get an amazing response. Whoever was manning the counter that day apparently had an “oops” moment. This is rare—Ace is usually very good at getting customers where they need to go—but it does happen. Once Samantha finally did make her way over to Patio, though, she ran into another Ace associate. This one was “friendly” and “helpful” (Samantha’s words, not mine), and she showed Samantha a few things that would go along well with the product she was there to buy. According to Samantha, “There was no pressure to buy anything, and the information she gave me was very valuable.” Result? The system worked. As Surane suggested, the processes the store associates were used to executing, and improving, on a daily basis proved to be more important than a single employee’s “oops” moment!

  Some important points to remember:

  Contrary to popular belief, as we discussed in the last tool, the customer is not always right, but the customer is always the customer. So as we learned, let him or her be wrong with dignity.

  Sometimes, of course, there is a problem, and the customer is right. When that happens, it’s time to go into recovery mode. (See Tool #35: Master the Art of Recovery.) Let the customer vent, assure him or her you are there to help, and realize that your job is not just to fix the problem but to restore the customer’s confidence.

  No matter how contentious your conversation might get, remember that you are not trying to win an argument. You are trying to win the customer!

  YOUR AMAZEMENT TOOLBOX

  Contentious exchanges with customers happen. Sometimes it’s best to step back, disengage, cool down—maybe even get some help.

  Whenever there is a potentially negative experience with a customer, learn from what happened, and improve the process.

  THE DRILL

  Can you think of a time when you had an interaction with a customer that made you upset or even angry? How did you handle it?

  What did you learn from the experience? What would you do differently if the same thing happened again?

  MASTER THE ART OF RECOVERY

  * * *

  A good recovery is the key to successfully handling complaints.

  PART OF CREATING LOYAL CUSTOMERS is how you respond in “recovery mode” when there are problems or complaints. When a customer complains, how do you handle it? Do you work at getting him or her to come back the next time? Or do you get into a discussion—or worse, an argument, about whose fault it is?

  A Moment of Misery—and we all have them—is really an opportunity disguised as a problem or complaint. It’s a chance to demonstrate your company’s “best practices” in the sometimes neglected art of customer service recovery. Those b
est practices can be adapted to all kinds of different situations in all kinds of different industries, but at the end of the day they always boil down to four basics:

  Apologize.

  Take action with an acceptable temporary solution.

  Make a promise to the customer to resolve the problem.

  And, finally, keep the promise.

  These strategies may sound simple. They may even sound like common sense. Yet, the execution may not always be so simple, and the common sense may not always be so common. Some problems may take a long time to resolve; others can be fixed immediately. Regardless of what the problem is, the end result has to be more than just a fixed problem. It is about restoring confidence. You want the customer to say this: “I love doing business with them. Even when there is a problem, I can count on them.”

  Eric, an associate at an Ace store in San Jose, California, got a call from a customer who had purchased a can of expensive interior household paint from the store and was in the middle of painting his son’s room. The problem was, the paint that was going up on the walls was extremely watery, and it left long drips that looked terrible. The customer had expected better. What could the store do about it?