Question by: Ashley

Be the Customer

“The best way to get first-hand customer feedback is to step into the shoes of the customer. Even if you’re selling a product of which you’re not typically a user (e.g., a man selling women’s handbags), you’ll learn a ton from mimicking the steps that a typical customer would take in learning about and buying your product. Sometimes, the most important insights are the most subtle ones.”

- Michael Tolkin | CEO, Merchant Exchange

There’s a Widget for That

“Having a simple way for people to contact you and give their feedback about your product or service is key. I recommend KissInsights and/or Get Satisfaction to accomplish this task. KissInsights gives you real-time feedback on what customers are thinking when they view your product offering, and Get Satisfaction makes it easy for people to vote on which ideas that they like from your community.”

- Lawrence Watkins | Founder & CEO, Great Black Speakers

Leave the Office for Once!

“You can learn a hundred times more from a handful of potential customers you meet in person to talk about your product as you can from hundreds of them taking a survey. The crux of the lean startup movement is the concept of “getting outside the building” and that’s because that’s where the harsh realities of making your startup a success lay. It’s scary, but you won’t be disappointed. Get out there!”

- Jason Evanish | co-founder, Greenhorn Connect

Penny for Your Thoughts?

“People are busy and, let’s be honest, every business wants more feedback from customers. This combination creates a challenge. But instead of offering a one-sided, expensive but attractive reward, try offering a win-win such as a generous coupon for a future purchase with you. This way you increase the rate of feedback and encourage more sales in the future.”

- Kent Healy | Founder and CEO, The Uncommon Life

Each Customer Is Unique

“All customers don’t use your product in the same way. We send custom messages to customers based on actions they’ve taken within our product. For instance, if a user signs into the product using our Android app, we ask them for feedback on the specifically on the app. Tools like Intercom make this process easy.”

- Bhavin Parikh | CEO, Magoosh Test Prep

Integrate Into Your Customer Service Model

“A simple and economically feasible option is to bargain with users that email your business. For instance, if somebody emails with questions and concerns, attend to their needs ASAP, effectively answering their questions and fulfilling their desires. In return for your great and speedy response, take advantage of the situation and request back to the user if they could share their opinion.”

- George Mavromaras | Founder and President, Mavro Inc. | Praetor Global LLC.

Pick Up the Phone

“Directly speaking to the early adopters of new products and services is, hands down. the best way to get feedback and improve the offer. If an in-person conversation is not feasible, then a Skype chat or simple phone call will relay much richer information than survey form or an email alone.”

- Kelly Azevedo | Founder, She’s Got Systems

Send an Old-Fashioned Survey

“Any time I have a new product or idea for a product I send a survey out to my email list. The responses I get are always surprisingly insightful, and incredibly useful for tweaking my offering. You can use a service like SurveyMonkey, or I’ve also had a lot of success with a basic Google Docs form as well.”

- Sean Ogle | Founder, Location 180, LLC

Any Guinea Pigs Available?

“Before I offer a new service or product to customers, I look for a few guinea pigs to test them out on. Right now, I’m testing a new service on five people I consider to be the ideal customer. They get free help and I don’t just get feedback — I also get testimonials for my marketing materials.”

- Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Convert With Kampyle

“Kampyle is an awesome tool for collecting customer feedback on your product. It’s a powerful tool that will show you deep analytics into the feedback you receive.”

- Ben Lang | Founder, EpicLaunch

Utilize Your Facebook Fans

“We like to ask our Facebook Fans for feedback, as they have a vested interest in our brand. Being social in nature, they aren’t shy about expressing their opinions. It’s good to get the perspectives of the people who know your services most closely.”

- Nicolas Gremion | CEO, Free-eBooks.net

Many marketers are intrigued with the idea of using Social Media in their go-to-market campaigns for the next product launch. They are disappointed to learn that there is usually not enough customer feedback available at the time of a launch to propel their new product to instant, viral success.

Authentic word of mouth cannot be “manufactured” by marketers when they need it, but can be leveraged very successfully when customers are engaged with their brand/category. Engaging customers is not an event within a campaign, but a long term, customer-centric strategy.

In the words of Brian Solis…

The first mile of customer engagement is a post-commerce or post-transaction strategy that invests in an ongoing experience to keep customers happy now and over time. Doing so sparks positive word of mouth and in turn influences decisions the dynamic customer journey that defines the new era of connected consumerism. If in fact getting closer to customers is a key objective, then why do many businessesneglect the first mile of customer experience?”

Every product experience starts with an expectation. The expectation was originally initiated by product announcements, industry analysts interpretations of these announcements, pundits’ reviews and commentary, customers’ word of mouth, and eventually your own experience. When this experience exceeds the original expectation, the Social Customer has a propensity to generate authentic, positive word of mouth online that is read by scores of interested consumers, who view it as the most trusted source of information about your product.

Many companies monitor social media to supplement their Customer Support channels to help resolve specific customer issues. This is surely a part of Customer Experience, but only a part. Multiple and loud accolades to customer support satisfaction may spook potential buyers by making them think that the product quality is low, because it requires so much in terms of support efforts. However, customers’ stories describing why they have purchased the product and whether it met their expectations truly help potential buyers decide if this is a right selection for them.

The goal is to learn from a very large number of customers, in a very short time how they perceive your product and whether it has met their expectations. The techniques employed in the listening process can be used during go-to-market campaigns.

WHAT A CUSTOMER WANTS FROM YOU by Jeffrey Gitomer

Instead of simply telling you how important the elements that will make relationships happen are (because you AND the rest of the world already know that), here, for YOUR benefit, are the actual elements:

• Relate to me. Know my needs and issues. Engage me by showing me other customers who are benefiting from doing business with you.
• Prepare for me. Show me that you have done your homework about my situation, not just yours.
• Don’t waste my time. Don’t ask me what you could have found out on your own.
• Tell me the truth. Truth leads to trust. I need to trust you in order to have a relationship with you.
• Tell me how I can use your product or service to build my business. I want to know how I can produce in my environment.
• Tell me how I can profit from the relationship. I want to know how I can profit from buying. And I want to know that you know.
• Show me the value, not just how it works. What are the elements of value attached to your product or service that relate to me?
• Make it easy for me to do business with you.
• Make service available when I need it.
• Be friendly to me. If I’m going to establish a relationship with you, I want it to be a friendly one.
• Respond quickly. If I call you, it’s because I need you, and I need a response now.
• Deliver on time. When you tell me it’s going to be there, I expect it. And it helps reinforce my feeling that you can meet my expectations.
• Have answers for me when I need them. I have questions about how your product works.
• Stay in touch with me. Keep me informed on a proactive basis. Make your messages more about me than you.
• Let me know when things or technologies change. Keep me informed about how I can stay ahead, even if it means buying more.
• Keep your promises. If you tell me something will happen, make it happen.
• Be a partner, not a vendor. Tell me how we will work together. And then prove it by your deeds.
• Serve me. I need to feel that service after the sale is more important than the emotion leading up to the order.

Do you know your customer?

However, even in the best case scenario reps will not close every opportunity. Some customers may not have a need to buy now. Others may have a need, but they may select another alternative.

A CSO Insights study found average win rates of about 45% in 2011, a five point drop from 2006.

So the key question is: What kind of sales experience are you delivering to all of your prospects – including those that weren’t qualified or didn’t buy?

This is important because, whether a prospect buys or not, their experience interacting with your company will create a lasting impression. A good experience means they may return another day, when they have needs that match your solutions. Or, they’ll recommend your company to a colleague. Either way, that helps increase revenue productivity.

For example, last year I was looking for software to support my online community CustomerThink.com.

Over the course of a couple of weeks, I searched for solutions, interacted with vendor web sites and engaged with several sales reps by email and phone. To most of the vendors I was just another not-very-valuable small business buyer. And I was treated accordingly, no doubt thanks to some nifty lead scoring algorithms that have become de rigueur for B2B marketers.

Unfortunately, these vendors probably didn’t factor into their scoring that my posts on CustomerThink reach an audience of 80,000 visitors per month. Or, that I have colleagues in the publishing business that are also potential buyers. And what do you know, shortly after my buying experiences, an industry colleague asked me for advice on similar tools, and I was only too happy to share my recommendations. Privately.

Bottom line: While I may not have been scored or treated as a valuable prospect, I was valuable in other ways—as an influencer. And many of your prospects are, too.

The point of lead scoring is to assess the value of the prospect to you—the seller—so you can make the best use of your resources. Let’s flip this idea around. What I’m advocating is that you spend time to really understand how your prospects—all of them—perceive their experience with your brand. From the initial web search to interacting with your web site to engaging with inside or field sales reps, all of these touchpoints form an impression and influence their likelihood to buy or recommend.

Start by assessing your current customer and prospect experiences. Look for opportunities to get prospect feedback using web analytics and feedback solutions. You could even hire “mystery prospects” to take on different personas representing buyers, influencers, researchers, etc.

The prospect experience used to be mainly face-to-face interactions. Then it moved to the phone, and now it’s going digital in a big way.

If you do a buyer “journey map” you’ll probably find that more and more buyers start their journey online and are rapidly adopting mobile technologies such as smart phones and tablets. In the US, Nielson reports that in 2012 about half of all mobile subscribers are using smartphones.

Ultimately, a great prospect experience is about interacting on their terms—giving them the information they want, in the form they want, where they want, at the time they want it, on the device they want. Whether prospects buy immediately or not, a positive experience will become the “gift that keeps on giving” in the future.

Realise that as you’re scoring prospects on their value to yours, they are also scoring their experience with your company. Delivering a great prospect experience can help you differentiate and become a B2B brand that businesspeople talk about like consumers rave about Zappos!

The phrase Customer Interaction Management is capitalized because it refers specifically to a type of software program designed for managing the ways in which organizations interact with their customers. The customer has always been in the “driver’s seat” in any business transaction; the adage “The customer is always right” has been traced back to the late nineteenth century, when it was coined by British retail magnate Henry Gordon Selfridge. But these people did not have all the valuable software to help them the way we do now — and besides, the advance of technology, including social media, has enabled the customer . And CIM has not only aided the business manager in his tasks, but also makes things possible that could not even have been imagined twenty years ago. It will be described in detail in the sections below.

CIM

CIM includes a variety of solutions that can be grouped in a variety of ways, viz.:

• by business need — workforce optimization, compliance and risk, voice of the customer, sales and retention, back office workforce optimization and operational efficiency
• by industry — retail banking, transportation, insurance, outsourcing, public sector, communication service providers, health care and utilities
• solution suites — workforce optimization, back office workforce optimization, retail customer satisfaction, interaction analytics, call volume reduction, voice of the customer, proactive compliance
• standalone solutions — There are fourteen of these, including incentive management, interaction recording, mobile customer service, real-time authentication and contact center fraud prevention

Let us look in greater depth at a few of these items.

Back office workforce optimization

By “back office” we mean basically that — those employees of a company who work behind the area that customers may access, and who are therefore not directly involved with customer service. But their work has a profound impact on how services are provided. For example, in a restaurant, kitchen employees are continually at work preparing the meals, cleaning the dishes and cooking equipment so that they remain in usable condition and taking care of the company’s books. If they fail to perform their work properly, the costs of operations rise and customer satisfaction is not met. Back office workforce optimization solutions can be used to automate manual work, heighten operational efficiency, help make more accurate forecasts and avoid both understaffing and overstaffing.

Retail customer experience

CIM has a suite that can streamline brand quality across all channels, from the retail store to social media. Incentive management solutions can be used to figure out what motivates employees and put the resulting knowledge into action.

Proactive compliance for consumer protection

When it comes to fulfilling the needs of their customers, business managers must be proactive rather than reactive. That is, they must be able to think in advance of what customers might need, what problems they might have and what is the best way of solving them. CIM can produce the materials needed for litigation, enforce compliance with the Dodd Frank Reform — a law passed in 2010 to provide for greater financial stability — and make it easier to investigate and settle customer disputes.

Interaction recording

This part involves recording interactions between customers and support personnel, whether by telephone, email or chat room. Such recordings can be used to analyze what the most common causes of customer complaints are and what can be done to keep such things at a minimum. It is through such records that companies assure accountability.

Mobile customer service

A smartphone is basically a computer the size of a cell phone that can do anything the latter can and then some. Those who study Web use estimate that before the end of this decade, smartphones will surpass desktop machines as the most common way of accessing the Internet. CIM includes a mobile app called Mobile Reach, designed to recommend channels that best serve customer needs and enable customers and agents to share texts and files more quickly and efficiently.

Well, it is very crucial to find the reasons why visitors or users never come back again to your website or leave your website on the go in order to make your web development venture successful. Want to know which are the possible reasons or things within your website design that cause your potential visitors or users to leave your site or stop them visiting again? Keep reading the points discussed below to find out the answers to your question.

Unwanted pop-ups Ads

Unnecessary pop-ups for ads or other stuff that start without any purpose or necessity really turn off users visiting your website. Moreover, some sites include music or podcast that will start without the permission of the users, which really make them leave your site and never come again to hear those non-sense stuff.

Dead links

What if the user has clicked on a specific link on your website and what they get is nothing but an error page? Well, it is impossible to retain the visitors in such scenarios. So, make sure your website doesn’t have any dead links or files deleted by someone handling your website.

Not so clear navigation

Sometimes users or visitors can’t find the information they are looking for within a website, which really annoys them. Create a seamless navigation within your website in order retain your potential customers or visitors.

Force them to download something to read the content

Many websites often force visitors to download something if they wish to read specific content from the website! Well, that’s totally ridiculous. I mean who is going to download not so trusted software other stuff to just read a piece of content from the website. The result is simple, you will lose them.

Mandatory registration really drives them crazy

Are you forcing users to get registered with your website before they can view the content? Well, if you are doing the same, then stop that or else you may never get them back on your website.

We can’t forget about the slow loading time! Of course no one is interested to wait for your website to load. So, make it faster.

Now, check your website and find out which of the above discussed issues are there in your website and stopping your visitors to visit your site again!

But there’s a third group out there—companies that are too smart for their own good, or for the good of their customers. And though they may gain ground in the short term, they’re hurting themselves as well, though it might take a while to become apparent. One of their tricks? “Dark patterns.” If your firm is using any of these practices, I can guarantee – you’re acting stupidly. Read on.

What on earth is a “Dark Pattern”?

According to darkpatterns.org, a dark pattern is “a type of user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things.”  Put another way, firms that employ dark patterns trick their customers into buying/signing up for things they almost certainly don’t want.

It can be as egregious as getting rental car customers to buy insurance they don’t want or need, or signing up for recurring shipments, billed monthly, when all they want is a single purchase. It can be as seemingly innocent and insidious as a request for a cow on Facebook that you don’t want, or didn’t mean to send.

You get the drift. Dark patterns get customers to do things they wouldn’t typically choose to do, if they were presented the options in a straightforward manner. This Slideshare from Harry Brignull has some great examples (and some great advice).

Dark Patterns: User Interfaces Designed to Trick People (Presented at UX Brighton 2010) from Harry Brignull

Four Pied Pipers, Falling Down a Slippery Slope

We’ve observed several common drivers of dark patterns. The first is as old as humanity itself: Greed. The others are typically forms of tremendous market pressure, like:

• Extreme Competition: The travel industry, especially RyanAir (as shown in the slideshare) is notorious for using tricks that let them appear to offer a lower price in a commoditized industry with margins cut to the bone. Of course, users find out the truth a little too late.
• Coming Obsolescence: Given that the entire magazine industry is facing extinction and publishers have to reinvent their revenue stream, it’s not surprising that publishers including Condé Nast have succumbed.
• Short-Lived Opportunities: After Facebook’s eye-popping acquisition of Instagram, there was a huge rush to see who’d be the “Instagram of Video.” Socialcam and Viddy reached 100 million combined users with the help of social-driven dark patterns. Socialcam was acquired by Autodesk, and Viddy raised a huge round of funding. But as of November Viddy was down to 660,000 users. Ooops.

Staying on Your Customers’ Good Side

Companies engage in practices like these for the same reasons that drove the LIBOR price-fixing scandal, securitization of junk debt, or selling mortgages to singularly unqualified homebuyers.  They think they’ll make more money – and many do in the short run.  But in an increasingly transparent world, the risks to corporate reputation are huge.

Even for execs that care more about short-term profits than customers, the downside risks are huge.  In a world of ever smarter, more connected customers, companies that engage dark patterns to shortsightedly meet near-term goals will eventually pay the ultimate price: they’ll slowly fade, losing ground as they lose respect until they eventually disappear.

And if you put the needs of your customers first, you’ll find that the long-term payoffs radically outweigh any short-term gains. Just watch RyanAir or Dollar Rent A Car get pilloried in the press, or see customers bolt from firms like Viddy. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that putting customers first is always a better path.

So, ask yourself: does your company ever try to “trick” your customers? If the answer is yes, put up your hand and “out” the practice, pushing your firm to do something, well, better. There’s always an alternative to using dark patterns.

And if you can’t, it’s time to look for a new job.

Because in the new world of smart customers, changing expectations and radically improved experiences, any company that thinks they can fool their customers are fooling themselves.

Here’s a question: Why would a customer willingly go to a store where there are fewer choices, average customer service, and the goods are priced higher than can be found elsewhere? One word: convenience. The proliferation of convenience stores across the country is proof that buyers value convenience as much as (if not more so than) price, selection, service, and other market factors.

Customers Love Mobile Payments
Mobile payment systems have received a lot of publicity pertaining to their advanced level of technology. But the prevalence of mobile payments wouldn’t be growing significantly if they weren’t convenient for businesses and purchasers.

In fact, the most important aspect of mobile payments’ convenience does not involve the business at all. People love having choices, so allowing them to pay for goods or services with a credit card gives them the option of keeping more money in their bank accounts for a bit longer. And after all, the customer is always right, right?

Businesses Love Mobile Payments
But mobile payments are incredibly convenient for merchants, too. For starters, businesses don’t have to buy, lease, or otherwise obtain additional equipment like checkout machines, swipe terminals, or specialized keypads. All they need is their smartphone or tablet computer and perhaps a credit card reader that plugs into their digital device (these readers are often supplied free of charge to mobile payments account holders).

The most obvious convenience of mobile payments is the elimination of a physical link to a power source. Businesses don’t need a telephone landline, data cable, or even an AC power cord in order to accept mobile payments. If merchants have a wireless Internet connection and/or a cell phone signal, credit card transactions can be processed securely, quickly, and easily almost anywhere on the planet.

For many businesses, the ability to accept mobile payments means the eradication of invoicing. Instead of writing up an invoice, giving it to a client or customer, and then waiting for a check in the mail, mobile payments can complete the entire transaction within seconds – and the funds are transferred into the business owner’s account with a few days’ time. And the convenience of improved cash flow cannot be overstated for a small business.

Mobile payments also improve the convenience of the actual credit card transaction. Customers approve the transactions by using their fingers to sign a touch screen rather than fiddling with a pen and a small credit card slip. In addition, customers receive an electronic receipt that is sent to their email address – so they don’t have to mess with keeping or storing paper credit card receipts.

Marketers and Accountants Love Mobile Payments
There’s another aspect to this e-receipt process that is often overlooked by businesses. As part of the transaction, customers provide their email addresses – which can be used for marketing purposes for the business. In other words, businesses don’t have to wrangle contact information out of a customer because it is already folded into the transaction process. How convenient is that?

Finally, most mobile payments services can simplify a business owner’s bookkeeping functions to some degree. Generally, these systems can display the past purchase history associated with a given credit card number, which can aid the merchant not only in accounting but also in future marketing efforts. Some mobile payments systems can even be linked directly to a company’s back office so that transactions don’t have to be manually entered into a computer at the end of the day.

It’s surprising (or perhaps not) how many buying decisions are based primarily or solely on convenience. So if you want a competitive edge in the marketplace, mobile payments can help make patronizing your business substantially more convenient – and your customers will notice.

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton

As a business owner, you know that attracting prospects and turning them into customers is the lifeblood of any company. But have you ever thought about why someone would choose a competitor over you? If you’ve ever lost a prospect to a competitor (it happens to the best of them), there are several likely culprits. Check out five reasons you’re losing business to your competitors and what you can do to win back the hearts of your prospects.

1. Poor Search Rankings

Do you know which search terms your prospects use to find local businesses like yours on popular search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo? Are you landing on the first page of these search engines after a prospect types in a search term? If you don’t know which search terms to use for your industry in order to be found online, or if your competitors rank higher on a search engine page than you, you’re probably losing business to your competition. That’s because most consumers don’t look at search results past a search engine’s first page. And, according to BIA Kelsey and ConStat, 97% of consumers use online media to shop locally. The best strategy to high search engine rankings uses both organic search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click campaigns. So make sure you have an online strategy in place so you can be found in search engine results before prospects find your competitors.

2. Poor Online Reputation

Do you know what people are saying about you and your business online? Do you know how your reputation compares to your competitors? Managing your online reputation is critical in today’s connected world. That’s because prospects will often check online review sites and your social media pages as part of their research during the buying process. In fact, 90% of respondents in a 2013 survey said online reviews influenced their buying decisions. No matter how good your products or services are, if past customers have left negative online reviews or posted negative comments on your social media pages, you’re most likely losing business to your competitors. The good news is that there are proactive strategies you can use to address poor online reviews and negative comments on social media. And, you can work to build a positive reputation online to help provide a more balanced view of your company. There are also services that can save you time by monitoring your online reputation for you.

3. Website Quality/Features

Your website is your calling card to the world. It’s often the first place prospects visit to learn more about you and your business. But if your website has poor design, lacks crucial information like an easy-to-find phone number, or is difficult to navigate, your prospects will simply leave your site to check out competitor websites. There are many features you can add to your website to help make it more appealing and helpful to your prospects – features that can help convert a prospect into a customer. The time and money you invest to ensure your website is the best it can be will pay off by attracting and keeping your visitors on your site, which in turn can lead to new business.

4. Slow Response Times

When prospects contact multiple companies via an online contact form or leave messages after business hours, you want to be the first business to follow up. That’s because up to half of all sales goes to the company who contacts the prospect back first. Your prospect is a warm lead because they have already reached out to you either online or over the phone. So don’t waste this opportunity to win new business simply due to a slow response time. By being the first one to follow up with your prospects, you’re demonstrating that you’re proactive and professional. It’s your opportunity to establish rapport, answer their questions, and perhaps even set an appointment or schedule a visit.

5. Customer Service

A brand loyalty survey by ClickFox noted that 56% of respondents said their “first purchase or first customer service interaction with a brand” is the deciding factor in determining long-term brand loyalty. Quality customer service is essential at both the prospect stage as well as the customer stage. Think about yourself as the customer of other businesses and the interactions you’ve had. How were you treated? If you called a company, did the person speaking sound professional and courteous? If you visited a business, were you greeted warmly and given the attention you needed? If you contacted a company by email, did you receive a prompt and articulate response? These are just a few examples where excellent customer service comes into play in the earliest stages of the sales cycle. If you’re providing poor customer service to your prospects, they’re more likely to take their business to your competitors. So take the time to do an honest assessment of how prospects are being treated once they contact you. If you can win a prospect’s heart early on, you have a better chance of converting them into a customer later on.

What strategies do you use to attract new prospects to your business? Let us know in the comments section.

Get to know your customers.

This should be a no-brainer. Building personal relationships with customers is the key to letting them know that you’re truly committed to their business needs. Communicating with and listening to your customers, whether in person or via email, phone, or social media (more on that last one later), makes them feel like they are dealing with a real person rather than a brand.

Young startups have a special advantage on this front. In the early stages of any company, business can be slow. But if you only have a handful of customers, there’s no excuse to not reach out to them. As a customer, when you feel a product or service is tailored for you, wouldn’t you keep coming back?

Social media—it’s (mostly) free!

Facebook and Twitter are just two of dozens of social media platforms that can help you to engage with your customers. Via social media, you can hang out with your customers in a place that they feel comfortable. It’s a far more neutral space than your website or blog. Actively communicating with customers not only humanizes your product, it also gives them a reason to feel more connected to your company. Whether positive or negative, you should always respond to your customers’ comments. It’ll show that your company feels accountable for its product. And the best part? It doesn’t cost a thing.

It’s all about the extras.

In the world of customer service, it’s really the little things that count. Handwritten thank you notes, special offers on birthdays, silly packaging details that show you’re human—this is the stuff of great customer care. By going the extra mile, you set your company apart from your competition and prove to your customers that your company is one worth sticking to.

Ask for feedback.

You may have a great product, but it never hurts to ask your customers how you can improve it. Asking your customers for their input not only helps you to offer better goods and services, but also helps them to feel more invested in your product. It’s a win-win.

As you are aware from my previous blogs, my background is based in leading customer care organizations. There is no question that the most rewarding, and at times the most frustrating aspect of running a customer care organization is managing large groups of people. It can be very difficult to operate at a high level of efficiency and effectiveness and the slightest misstep can create chaos.

Here are two factors that drive success.

The first factor of success is leadership, but not just the leaders, Director of Operations, Operations Managers and Supervisors interacting with the front line CSR’s, but how they interact with other departments like Workforce Management, and Human Resources.

1. Leadership development starts from the top down. Inspect what you expect on a daily basis.
2. Every operation I have been directly involved with has an attendance policy. The policy is usually based on some form of excused and unexcused absences within a set amount of time. Make sure the policy is easy to understand and more importantly, easy to apply across the board
3. The dreaded “F” word, FMLA or “Family and Medical Leave Act“. It is detailed and changes frequently. Make sure HR has it boiled down so that the Leadership team understands the law and how to apply it. And, be ready and willing to partner with HR when there are questions
4. Ensure that your Operations Leaders are communicating with HR and Workforce Management on a daily basis. These three organizations should function as one and be aligned on all policies and procedures

The second factor is a flexible Workforce Management solution.

1. The solution should integrate with Time Keeping and ERP modules to ensure data consistency
2. Look for a system that is role based so that different levels of Leadership and Departments can have the appropriate access
3. Reporting should be robust and readily available to ensure timely and accurate decision data points

Learn more about Workforce Management solutions.

Also, be sure to avoid the dreaded “F” word epidemic. It is possible for employees to use FMLA inappropriately which can create a time-off challenge in your organization.

“By the time the phone rings, there’s already trouble. When that manger is called or this department is reached, it’s because someone is disappointed, angry or stuck. Illness, broken promises or a real urgency have led to this new conversation even taking place.”  –Seth Godin

Seth Godin, author of 14 books, every one of which a best seller, publishes a blog post every morning. Each post offers insight into business practices that help organizations breed loyal customers—the key to a thriving business in today’s world. Today’s post, “Let’s start with “sorry’”, provided advice for organizations on the way they conduct customer service. He explains that by the time a customer calls an organization, there’s already frustration and trouble.

Godin makes a great point, as customers, we know that picking up a phone and working through a phone tree to get a problem solved is frustrating. It’s even starting to feel quite archaic as the rest of the world evolves.

No matter what organization you run or belong to—large, small, public, private, B2B or B2C—one priority should be blatantly clear: your customer service needs to evolve.

As so many have discussed, a key tool that can help evolve customer service is social media. Social media grants companies the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with customers and potential customers. By listening, we can find out what’s off-putting about a service, frustrating about a product or missing from an experience altogether. Over half of consumers now use social media to directly reach out to companies to report satisfaction, problems and ask questions, says Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media report.

But, with social media being an obvious play for businesses, what’s the next step in differentiating customer service?

In today’s world of cutting-edge technology, we can listen even further. We can do that by connecting products, or maybe more widely recognized, by utilizing the Internet of Things. While many have talked about the Internet of Things, few have identified it as a way to better customer experiences—where it really has the opportunity to shine.

By “listening” to products and enabling them to tell the service team when they’re having problems, it’s very possible to avoid the need for a customer to pick up the phone at all. It sounds very futuristic, but it’s very possible to connect products into business processes now.

One way to enable connected products through business process is to give products a voice, maybe even through a pre-existing structure like a CRM. Let’s use hot tubs as a connected product example (yes, hot tubs). First, the hot tubs are equipped with sensors that capture data such as temperature, humidity and pH. Through a dashboard, the company can compare sensor data to social data. They can look at social sentiment compared to sensor readings and drill in where there may be problems. The system also lets the company monitor their product 24/7—at any time they can check on the product’s status and performance. They can drill down to each specific hot tub, understanding its exact situation at all times. The data is so specific that they can look at a map of the wiring on a hot tub and identify and troubleshoot issues remotely, before the customer notices. When there is an issue that must be solved by a technician, it’s the organization letting the consumer know—instead of the frustrated consumer calling into the organization. The hot tub owner can sit back, relax and feel confident that they’re getting the maximum quality out of their product with uninterrupted service (now that’s something I’d tweet about).

This is just one of millions of use cases for better customer service through the Internet of Things. And, while customer service improves, so does the ease of the job of the organization. Instead of reactively handling issues, customer service becomes a proactive and even preventative activity.

The Bottom Line

We will continue to see companies work to evolve customer service and become completely customer centric from the inside out. It’s a must– those who lose sight of the customer truly risk going out of business. In 1977 Sam Walton said, “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everyone from the chairman down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”  That statement has never been more true than today. So, I encourage you to capitalize on the technologies that enable you to listen—to both people and products—and you won’t have to say sorry.

If your business is thinking about making the switch to be phone-free, read this insider’s scoop as to why phone support is becoming a thing of the past. As for Shortstack, the two main reasons we said “No” to phone support:

1. Cost: When ShortStack was in its infancy, the decision to not offer phone support was technically not a decision at all. We couldn’t spare the manpower to answer the phone all day. Instead we had users submit “help” tickets and would answer their questions as quickly as possible. As ShortStack grew and our budget was less shoestring, phone support was still not a viable option because it would have required either doubling our staff, or outsourcing to a call center. Both options were extremely costly and, in our experience, call centers don’t offer the same attention to detail that in-house staff can do. Online support allows us to be hands-on with our support, without having to staff way up.

2. Frustration for users and staff: At some point, nearly everyone has called a company’s phone support line. Was the experience awesome? For most people, phone support experiences have been the exact opposite. After waiting on hold, you get transferred around, put on hold some more, only in the hopes that you’ll eventually get helped. Next thing you know, it’s been 30 minutes. When you finally do hang up, chances are very good that your questions haven’t even been answered.

On the flip side of that scenario, offering phone support is no picnic for the person trying to troubleshoot the issue, either. Have you ever tried walking your mom through hooking up a printer, via the phone? The experience can be a bit frustrating (Love you, mom!). Without the ability to link to screenshots, video tutorials, or detailed instructions on how features work, (which can only be done online) the process can be long and painful.

Some users are annoyed when we tell them we can’t call them

If a user asks for phone support, occasionally they’re a little burned when they hear that we don’t offer it. But nine times out of ten, they’ll submit their online support ticket and are pleasantly surprised at our awesome turn-around time and thorough response.

In a phone support scenario, users might react negatively to a “I’m going to have to look into this more and get back to you,” response.  Especially after they’ve patiently waited on hold. With online support, we can research a question, test it, get input from colleagues, and figure out a solution while the user is off the phone and going about their business.

Online support mostly helps our business

For the most part, hanging up on phone support has positive for our business. There are a few users who insist on it and when we tell them we don’t offer it, we realize that they might sign up with another company. This can sting a bit when these few include big brands that could potentially come, er, calling with big bucks to spend. However, in our experience, those big brands also need a lot of hand-holding, so in the long run, the resources expended to support them may not be profitable.

However, for the majority of our users, online support is their preferred method of communication. They are tech savvy, and ordering pizza, buying concert tickets, chatting with friends, and troubleshooting software is easy enough to do online. Making a phone call is more trouble than it’s worth.

Online support also helps our business because it is the best way for us to assist our users and troubleshoot their issues. With online support, we’re able to offer a nicely packaged solution to questions or issues, inclusive of screenshots, video tutorials, help docs, and detailed instructions that they can refer back to if needed. When users are submitting tickets, they can send screenshots and screencasts which help us determine what the problem might be. This would be impossible to do over the phone.

Long live online support!

We’ll most likely never switch to phone support because it just doesn’t make sense for our company. Despite the few challenges and small percentage of our users that would prefer it, it’s simply not conducive to our product. There’s a reason more and more businesses are ditching the phones and relying solely on the versatility of the internet to converse with their customers. With the benefits that come of being phone-free, perhaps it’s time you check out this brave new approach for your business.

This post originally appeared on Socially Stacked.

Just because an employee understands what it means to deliver great customer service, doesn’t mean that he or she is able to deliver it.

As I talk to many different companies about how they build an organization that is customer-focused, many of them start with the hiring process. You have to hire people that already understand customer service and that are capable of delivering it. That’s the human side of customer service.

The hiring professional in the organization looks at the applicant’s background, prior experiences, answers to interview questions and more. The applicant’s background indicates extensive customer service experience, and he or she may be the perfect fit. Still, after the interviews and assessments, hiring the people who know it, get it and have experience with it, doesn’t mean they are going to deliver the customer service you hope for, unless you provide training – technical customer service training.

Now I think every employee should go through customer service training, and it should be ongoing. It keeps the employees focused by reminding and reinforcing various customer service skills, techniques, and the attitudes necessary for delivering excellent customer service. That’s the human side and is what helps keep the organization’s culture customer-focused. In addition to the human side, or what some refer to as “people skills” training, the employees need to go through technical customer service training that teaches how to apply that human side to their job responsibilities.

For example, you may be the owner of a restaurant and you hire a server. Let’s call him Bob. Bob has never worked at a restaurant, but has a background in customer service. As a matter of fact, Bob was a front-desk clerk at a very nice hotel. He really does understand how to deliver great customer service. But, he doesn’t understand how to wait tables.

That’s where the second side of service comes in, the technical side. A technical customer service lesson might teach an employee which side of the guest is the right side to pick up and set down a plate. No amount of customer service background will teach that, or many of the other nuances that go into creating the perfect customer experience at a restaurant.

This is the same in just about any business. It takes both attitude and skill. The best people have both. The best companies recognize and make sure their employees have both.

The technical side of customer service is actually easy to teach, but that doesn’t mean the customer will have a great experience. The employee also has to understand the human side of customer service. It is the combination of the two that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Yet, customer service channels and staffers are too often the losers when company executives play a round of “balance sheet bingo.”  Customer service is the first to be cut and the last department to be respected.  It’s a huge mistake: those companies that treat service seriously and make it a priority are positioning themselves as industry leaders.

Empowered Employees Increase Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty

How important is customer service?  It’s critical to repeat business, a Forrester Research study found:

Eighty-one percent of respondents who said a company’s problem resolution experience far exceeded their expectations also said that they’re very likely to do business with that company again. Only 5% of those who said problem resolution experiences fell far below expectations said that they’re very likely to do business with the same company again.

This is important:  customers aren’t automatically upset when they have a problem, but they get very upset if their issue isn’t resolved quickly, easily, and courteously.

To “empower” employees really means to trust them to make decisions.  This Harvard Business School blog post offers four tips to move toward empowered employees:

1. Give power:  When staffers prove they can handle a level of responsibility, give them more.
2. Create a favorable environment:  Encourage people to gain new skills.
3. Don’t second-guess: Unless the staffer has made a huge error – or is about to – stay out of the way.  People often learn more from mistakes than from successes.
4. Give people discretion and autonomy:  Give them a job and let them do it.

Successful companies hire carefully and look first for employees with the right attitude.  Virgin Atlantic hires about 1% of applicants and screens them for the “Virgin attitude,” says CEO David Cash.  The airline seeks people who are positive, friendly, and see life as a “glass-half-full.”  Attitude is critical for all businesses:

“Fill your business with upbeat employees who are willing to go the extra mile when providing customer service. When hiring keep in mind that attitude trumps aptitude. It is easier to increase technical skills than modify undesirable attitudes.”

No matter how great your employees or how upbeat their attitudes, they’re always constrained by your corporate culture.  If company executives truly value their customers and place a priority on service, then that attitude will pervade the whole organization.

Unhappy Employees = Unhappy Customers

Now, every company will say that employees and their customer relationships are their “most important assets.”  But talk is cheap, and the pursuit of short-term profit can cause long-term harm to a company’s relationship with employees, its reputation with customers, and its bottom line.

For example, the Wall Street Journal reported that clumsily-handled, deep staff cuts at JC Penny further wounded the struggling company:  “…employees were brought to the Plano auditorium to be fired in groups of a few dozen to more than 100.”

Meanwhile – with a few exceptions – airlines are the poster children for bad customer service.  How could it be otherwise, with some airline personnel taking this novel approach to complaint resolution: threatening to have complaining customers arrested.  Spirit Airlines recently eliminated its toll-free customer service line.  In 2007, USA Today discussed bad airline service and noted that prospects for change weren’t great:

Tony Polito, an associate professor of marketing and supply chain management at East Carolina University, says carriers have focused so much on cutting costs that they no longer seem to have the human or technical resources necessary to improve customer service.

“I’m not just talking about delays,” he says. “The seating isn’t comfortable. The food, if available, isn’t good. Employees aren’t happy, and that filters through to the customer.”

Businesses think they’re being pennywise, but a strategy that creates dispirited employees and disgruntled customers is just plain foolish.

Provide Excellent Service Via All Channels

Of course, many customers would just be grateful to talk with an actual human – no matter how surly. But that isn’t always possible.  Orlando, FL’s Utility Commission, for instance, is “improving” customer service by automating it and eliminating customer support staff.

Compare that strategy to the one used by Angie’s List, where company founder Angie Hicks believes that “nothing can replace the human interaction” aspect of customer service.   Angie’s List stands out among other Internet-based businesses in that it continues to provide phone support:

Most of the subscribers to Angie’s List go online to access the company’s services, “but it is a competitive advantage to have people to talk to,” Hicks said during a morning keynote. Live operators handle “such a small part of our business, but it’s an important part of our business.”

It’s not enough to have operators in a call center to take customer calls, Hicks advised. Managers need to hire the right people and empower them to resolve customer issues on the spot, she said.

Few service situations are as frustrating as being routed from person to person to person, asked to tell the same story each time and then hear that a “supervisor” needs to be consulted.

Customers also dislike having to wait on hold for service.  A 2013 study in the UK found that, during the past year, 92% of respondents moved their business to a different merchant after receiving poor service. Companies may not even realize they’re losing out:

Half of those respondents also said that being kept on hold or waiting in a queue put them off calling a business, which means that they have switched their businesses without consulting with their supplier about the problem first.

Even a knowledgeable and empowered customer service staff may not be enough if other aspects of your service are inadequate. Long waits for service, a poor phone system, and inadequate on hold messaging may send customers away before they ever get to talk with a human.

Customers may not tell you why they’re leaving, but they’ll spread the word to others.  The Forrester Research study found that 71% of unhappy customers said they share their dissatisfaction with friends in person, on social media, and other ways.

The solution is simple: trust your employees, and treat both employees and customers with respect.

“Always do right.  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”  Mark Twain thought he was making a joke, but that aphorism should be a guide for all businesses.  In a business environment where a majority of customers accept bad customer service as normal, “doing right” by providing excellent service builds both employee and customer loyalty.  You’ll “gratify” your customers and “astonish” your competitors with your success.

There is a satisfied customer. There is a happy customer. And there is a happy-grateful customer. Too often we are not present to these distinctions. You and I can create satisfied customers simply by taking care of the functional aspects of the customer experience. To create a happy and grateful customer requires the human touch that evokes positive, life affirming emotions. And, I say that the human touch makes all the difference when it comes to repeat business and customer advocacy in a services centred business. Allow me to share a story with you.

“I like Hussein. He’s friendly, kind and genuine.” That is what my daughter said to me, with a big smile on her face, as we were leaving The Daruchini, our local Bangladeshi restaurant in Binfield. I found myself feeling the same way. What had turned a usually satisfactory experience, at this restaurant, into a happy memorable experience this time?

How do you create a memorable customer experience?

On a cold windy rainy day, my daughter and I had turned up at The Daruchini, a Bangladeshi restaurant, to pick up the takeaway meals that my wife had ordered. Walking up to the bar, a young man greeted us with a smile. We did not know him, yet he seemed to know us. He confirmed the order and the price with me. Whilst he was doing this his colleague spoke to him in a language that I did not understand.

To my surprise, this young man turned to me and apologised for speaking his native language. So I asked him what language they were speaking. “Bangladeshi” he told me. Then he asked me where I came from, originally. I told him that I came from Pakistani administered Kashmir. At this point, he turned to my 12 year old daughter and asked her, in a friendly way, if she had ever been there. My daughter shook her head. I said that I had not been willing to take her there as I considered it too risky. The young man agreed with me and told me that I had made a wise choice. Right there I felt accepted, acknowledged, validated, understood. I noticed a connection and found myself asking for his name. He told me his name (Hussein) and I shared my name with him.

Then our takeaway food order arrived. Hussein opened the refrigerator where the drinks are kept. And he asked my daughter if she drank Fanta (fizzy drink). She smiled and said “Yes.” Hussein hand her a can of Fanta. I noticed that I was surprised. I noticed that I was feeling happy. And I noticed that I felt gratitude toward Hussein for his kindness towards my daughter. I thanked Hussein and we left the restaurant.

We got into our car and were about to drive off when Hussein caught up with us. He told us that it was likely that our food order had been mixed up with another food order. So he asked to take the food order away so it could be checked. He apologised for the mix up. And told us that he would be back in a couple of minutes with the correct order.

Shortly, afterwards Hussein was back, walking across the car park in the rain. He apologised for the mix-up and for keeping us waiting. Then he told us that he had given us an extra dish, free of charge, to make up for keeping us waiting. Once again, I found myself surprised and feeling happy. This is when my daughter said ”I like Hussein. He’s friendly, kind and genuine.”

What is the lesson here?

It occurs to me that how Hussein showed up, his attitude and his little acts of kindness, cannot be scripted. They cannot be turned into process . It occurs to me that your organisation will either create space for these qualities to show up or will suppress them. With that in mind I have three questions for you:

1. Does your organisation recruit and retain people like Hussein?

2. Does your organisation create a space for your people to be genuinely friendly, responsive, and kind with your customers – to respond to the unique customer situation?

3. Does your organisation call forth the best of your people – their humanity, their ability to connect with your customers? Or does your organisation suppress the best of your people through rules, scripts, process and fear of breaking the standard rules?

For many, marketing activities are still a rear-view mirror activity. Research can take weeks or months, and developing a plan of attack is static. Generating leads and converting in a digital environment can become
more dynamic as we put customer data to work to capitalize on opportunities when prospects are still in front of you – and predict outcomes instead of just reporting information.

In a B2C environment we use data mining and analytical tools to:

• Understand the demographic and psychographic attributes of existing customers so you can target them more effectively
• Create hyper-local marketing strategies and messages that target prospects with similar attributes as existing customers
• Measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and local marketing investments based on how they are driving improvements in sales, retention, and customer loyalty

In a B2B environment we use data mining and analytical tools to:

• Understand site visitors and where they are in the buying process, then to apply those insights to define and improve conversion rates
• Create hyper-local marketing strategies and messages that target prospects with similar attributes as existing customers
• Measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and local marketing investments based on how they are driving improvements in leads and conversions

Online marketers rely on channels like email, online PR, search and social media to generate awareness, leads and sales. Without planned content designed to attract, engage and inspire action with prospects, customers and
industry influentials, companies may find themselves looking in the tail lights of their competitors in the distance. Tie your SEO, Social Media and Online Public Relations efforts together in a way that’s manageable and
efficient.

The discipline of marketing is shifting from a process of research and strategy formulation that gets implemented over months, to a creative and dynamic assimilation of data driven decision points that get modified in real time.

Here are four telling signs that you need to take a hard look at your business’ reputation before it’s too late.

You haven’t addressed customers’ questions or comments online, ever.

Hopefully, this isn’t the case for your business, and you have addressed critical issues in the past. But in order to maintain a good reputation for your business, you should at least try to acknowledge comments and questions as soon as you see them online, even if you don’t have a complete resolution. A recent survey indicates that of consumers who leave comments for businesses online, 42% expect to get a response at least within an hour. So, in order to show these customers that you are listening, consider setting up alerts for your business name and critical keywords like “complaints” and “reviews” so that you are up to date on any new mentions that matter for your reputation.

You address your online feedback, but you’re never to blame.

Chances are if nearly every comment about your business online is negative, blaming customers for their own negative experience will only result in more negative feedback, and very bad PR. There are many examples of business owners who cyber-attacked reviewers who by all means had legitimate frustrations about the business, on online review sites. These attempts at justifying bad customer service and bad business practices resulted in more negative reviews from people who would likely never become a customer. So if there’s one thing you should remember about these incidents, it’s that you can’t erase what you write online. The lesson to be learned here is to keep your cool when you see negative reviews, and respond only when you can do so with professionalism and a clear head.

You have a lot of one-time customers.

There are different reasons why customers may do business with you once and not return: for example, if they aren’t from your local area. But if your business doesn’t have loyal customers, then you might have a larger issue at hand. As a business owner, you might not always know the various problems your business is having. But by inspecting your online reputation, you may be able to identify problems that you didn’t know existed. Maybe your online advertisements are dated, creating a false representation of your business. Perhaps your customer service is not up to par. Whatever the case may be, customers are very likely to share negative experiences online, so make sure you know what they are saying and do what you can to fix it.

You have one mad customer whose goal in life is to bring you down.

The saying “one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch” can often be applicable to your online reputation. And if you have that one unhappy customer who consistently rants about you online, then you probably understand the phrase a little better. While their continuous complaints may stem from actual problems, the fact that they continue to scorn you online may be a sign that they just really want to be heard. If you have a reviewer like this, ask about the details of their experience and do your best to right the wrong. If anything, this will show other potential customers that you are listening and attempting to make up for any less-than-satisfactory experiences. And remember, while a timely response is important, a professional response is critical.

Have you dealt with any of these situations? What did you do to resolve them? Let us know in a comment!

We all have participated in endless conversations on customer centricity. As Harvard Business Review puts it, the infamous adage of Henry Ford “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” has been trotted out. Market research today isn’t fighting about customer centricity anymore, but how to be customer centric at best.

Average research leads to average results. So go for extremes!

Design Thinking has pointed out one major flaw in market research’s ability to gain insights for radical innovations: the sampling of data. In often-applied quantitative market research you’re looking for statistically representative samples. This is because you want to understand the identified target group in a precise manner.

For that, extreme data points are usually left out not to bias the objective point of view. The result is quite a tautology: You only come up with average, incremental products because you only look at average users. But what is really wanted are wild, unexpected observations leading to meaningful and radical ideas.

How can that be done? “Understand and gain empathy for extreme users!”, is one answer Design Thinking provides. Why does this work so well? Because extreme users amplify needs and behaviors of target groups that would otherwise stay hidden.

How To: 3 Easy Steps

So the idea is to identify extreme users, analyze their behaviors and derive needs, which apply to ordinary users. To do so, you may follow these steps:

• What functional design aspects do you want to look into? For instance, you may want to understand activities people carry out at bus stops while waiting, or understand how the boarding process there works.

• Which extreme users can you think of for these design aspects? For example, homeless people staying at the bus stop use them as shelters for a good fraction of the day, or tourists not speaking the local language may encounter serious communication problems when entering buses.

• Engage extreme users in a conversation and / or observe them. Why are they doing, what they’re doing? A rule of thumb is to ask “Why?” two more times after it already gets awkward to ask more. But don’t be afraid to dig deeper. You really want to understand why people do things. Be as curious as a child.

The insights you’re getting will often be wild. Some might not apply to ordinary users – but some definitely will, and point to needs that many will people have. These are the nuggets you can then work with to come up with amazing solutions that really matter.

As you can see, extreme users provide helpful cues helping you to understand your target group better. Going beyond rationality and representativeness will make a difference.

Photo Credits: AFP Photo / Brendan Smialowski

Example 1: “U Can’t Touch This”

“Do not touch, please!” the museum guard called out to the fellow who had his entire hand on one of the exhibits in the sculpture garden at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

I could see that the guy had heard the guard, but even as the guard walked toward him he continued to play with the sculpture. When the guard was still several feet away, the misbehaving museum-goer announced petulantly, as if to justify his behavior, “But I saw them touching!” referring to a couple that the same guard had stopped from touching the same sculpture a few minutes earlier.

Then, as if to say, “I’ve defied you long enough that anyone watching can tell that I’m definitely not stopping because you told me to,” he deliberately removed his hand from the sculpture and walked away just before the guard reached him.

Example 2: “I Did It My Way”

On the flight back to New York, I had the aisle seat in an exit row. The standard protocol for airplane exit rows is that the passengers seated there must be able to manage opening the exit door and be willing to assist other passengers through it. The assumption is that the passengers in the exit row won’t themselves create dangerous conditions if there’s an emergency evacuation.

The guy across the aisle had already stowed his stuff, but as soon as the flight attendants had strapped themselves into their seats, he moved his shoes and his messenger bag from the correct spot under the seat in front of him to the floor directly in front of his seat — where they fully and completely blocked the row — so he could stretch his legs out more comfortably over them. Then he promptly went to sleep.

This passenger clearly knew the drill — he obeyed it to the letter, at least until no one was watching. Probably he had never flown on a plane that evacuated, and the likelihood was that this flight wouldn’t either, so he figured why should he give up 10 minutes of comfort? The statistics were obviously in his favor, although the rules were just as obviously not.

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

A minority of people will intentionally do the wrong thing: behave badly and violate norms. They may believe they’re doing no harm because they do not perceive the harm themselves. Or they may realize they’re out of line but care more about satisfying their own needs or whims.

The fellow at the museum justified his obvious rule-breaking by childishly citing someone else’s prior violation, and he actually appeared to enjoy his 10 seconds of rebelliousness. And the airline passenger complied with the rules as long as he knew he was under observation, but he didn’t feel the need to obey a rule that was temporarily unenforceable.

Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, suggests that we usually behave better when we believe we’re being observed. If that’s so, maybe putting graphics of open eyes above an airplane’s emergency rows would help in the second situation. But how can we deal with individuals like the rude guest at the sculpture garden, who selfishly believe they are entitled to express themselves even when — or explicitly because — their behavior is disruptive to others?

The customer is always the customer. It’s in every organization’s best interest to love their customers, but not to let them trample on the business model, the employees, or the privileges of other customers. Sometimes we just have to tell these self-focused customers that “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

TSA recently announced that it was changing some of its carry-on restrictions; in addition to  certain types of knives, they will allow passengers to bring golf clubs, hockey sticks, and plastic bats onto planes, all of which had been restricted post-9/11. Other than the obvious question about whether the world is a safer place now than it was then (or even a month ago), is this really such a good idea? Where did this come from?

Supposedly, this brings U.S. carry-on rules in line with those of the EU. Who decided that what the EU was doing was a best practice?

According to the president of the Transportation Workers Union, Stacy Martin, “This policy was designed to make the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer.” Her comments come as a direct result of what TSA Administrator John Pistole said: “Frankly, I don’t want TSA agents to be delayed by these.” Clearly he believes the destructive weapons of choice have shifted, but I think when you take your eye off the ball, that’s when the other team scores. My two cents.

Anyway, there’s more to this story than just that, and I don’t really want to debate it; that’s not my point here. I’m using this as an example for my topic, and I want to focus on those two statements in the previous paragraph – and the problem with inside-out thinking when it comes to customer experience.

Inside-out thinking means your focus is on processes that are designed and implemented based on internal thinking and intuition. The customer’s needs and perspectives do not play a part in this type of thinking. You make decisions because you think it’s what’s best for the business.

Outside-in thinking means that you look at your business from the customer’s perspective and subsequently design processes and make decisions based on what’s best for the customer and what meets the customer’s needs. You make decisions because you know it’s what’s best for your customers.

When TSA is thinking about processes and policies that simplify things for their own good, without considering the impact on their customers, then that is inside-out thinking. This is a prime example, another quote from John Pistole: “The idea that we have to look for, to find, and then somehow resolve whatever that prohibited item is — that takes time and effort.” Yea, but that time and effort will hopefully save the lives of hundreds of people (your customers).

There was a glimmer of hope when I read an article a couple days ago that lawmakers are trying to reverse this decision. And I quote: “This decision appears to have been made without formal engagement with stakeholders impacted by this policy, including those most likely to come into contact with someone possessing a knife on a plane – flight crew members and air marshals.”

Um, what about the other passengers? Aren’t they also stakeholders impacted by the policy?

OK, so let’s just assume for the sake of this post that everything TSA decided was truly done without taking into consideration the customer perspective or the impact on the customer.

It might be inside-out thinking when there’s a conscious decision to make process, policy, people, systems, or other changes that:

1. Don’t improve the customer experience at the same time
2. Are about maximizing shareholder returns, not about benefits for the customer
3. Improve internal efficiencies but to the detriment of customer interactions
4. Are cost-cutting measures that also negatively impact the  customer experience
5. Might be the wrong process, policy, people, or systems to change

By contrast, outside-in thinking flips each of those points on its head and looks like this. There’s a conscious decision to make process, policy, people, systems, or other changes that:

1. Improve the customer experience at the same time
2. Are about maximizing benefits for the customer
3. Improve internal efficiencies known to be painpoints when executing customer interactions
4. Are cost-cutting measures that significantly improve the customer experience
5. Are the right process, policy, people, or systems because you’ve listened to customer feedback and know how customers are affected

Outside-in thinking, i.e., applying the customer perspective to every decision the company makes, leads to a number of things, none of which you’ll get by making decisions that are not based on what’s best for your customers…

•    reduced complaints
•    increased satisfaction
•    increased referrals
•    increased repeat purchases
•    improved ease of doing business
•    fewer lost customers

… all of which translate to reduced costs and increased revenue. Now who can’t get on board with that?

Here are a few business leaders who get it:

Don’t try to tell the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer! -Gene Buckley, President Sikorsky Aircraft

This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back. -John Ilhan, Crazy John’s

For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base. -John Mackey, Whole Foods

Today’s post was originally a guest post for I Want It Now on March 18, 2013.

According to Forbes, Millennials “take technology for granted. They live through social media. They want the world their way, and they want it now.”

Yet for being so social and connected online, many Millennials seek to avoid face-to-face or telephone conversations at all costs, creating an evolutionary game-changer for customer service. Texting, social media and other online communication have all given this talk-without-really-talking generation the ability to communicate on their own terms: at their convenience, without having to make eye contact, without judgment, and with some degree of anonymity. They are also able to control the conversation, determining the length, the direction, and if and when they will respond (and via what channel).

Says psychologist Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other, of this collective behavioral change, “we are together, but each of us in in our own bubble, furiously connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens.” And if you’ve watched not just Millennials, but other younger generations together at dinner, at an event or in a meeting, any face-to-face conversation is usually held in competition with another happening on a mobile device (or several).

According to Forbes, Millennials switch their attention between media platforms ( laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.) 27 times per hour on average. And as for customer service, multi-channel, multi-tasking, need-for-speed service is the norm:

• On average, 18 to 30-year-olds use 6.3 customer service channels (NICE Survey).
• 42% of 18 to 34-year-olds expect customer support on social media within 12 hours of a complaint or comment (Nielsen).
• When looking for product service or support, 71% of 16 to 24-year- olds and 65% of 25 to 34-year-olds search for a solution online first (2012 Sitel Study).
• A quarter to a third (25% to 32%) of Millennials report using the following alternative channels frequently: live chat or virtual assistant on websites, text messaging (SMS), smartphone applications, service kiosks, social networks and online communities (NICE Systems Survey).

Customer Service: The Next Generation

While Millennials may never dial your organization’s customer service number during their lifetime, they will surely Google, tweet, post and text your organization for service, and if you don’t answer, they’ll call you out on a public scale. While your organization may offer multi-channel customer service, is it multi enough for Millennials? In addition to phone, email and online support portal, consider expanded coverage including:

• Live chat
• Social
• Mobile
• and Video

These channels allow Millennials to get service while multi-tasking on their multi-devices, communicate at their convenience, and control their comfort level when it comes to the increasingly lost art of conversation. Says Turkle in a New York Times article of the way technology is shaping us, and in turn, the way we are shaping our interactions with friends, family, followers and brands: “I’ve learned that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are.

“Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party,” talking but yet not talking.

Why is consumer confidence important? It is often said that consumer confidence can be a good indicator of where the key stock indices in the U.S. are headed next. The reasoning behind this is that the U.S. economy thrives on consumer spending—meaning the more Americans spend, the more the economic growth.

If consumers are pessimistic, they will spend less. Think of it this way: if you find that businesses in the industry you work in are cutting jobs—say, because of recession—would you be spending as much? Or would you hoard and save as much as you can? This phenomenon may result in lower corporate profits and a decline in the stock market.

Similarly, if consumers are confident—for example, they think their jobs are going to be there for a while—they will not be hesitant to spend, meaning higher profits leading to a higher stock market.

Take a look at the chart below:

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

Consumer confidence (red line in the chart above) and the stock market/S&P 500 (green line) seem to be heading in similar directions. Looking at the chart above, the hypothesis that the stock market goes higher as the consumer sentiment increases seems to be true. The S&P 500 and consumer sentiment have a correlation of 79%.

Now with this comes a question: how does one actually profit from rising consumer confidence?

Even though an increase in consumer confidence may cause the entire stock market to rise, there are sectors that can do much better as consumers start to spend. Consider the high-end retailers; when consumers have more money. they tend to spend more on luxury goods.

One way investors can profit from rising consumer sentiment is by looking to place where consumer spending affects the most. They might want to look at exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like the Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary (NYSEArca/RCD).

This ETF provides investors with exposure to the companies in consumer cyclical industries, which generally are highly dependant on consumer spending and confidence. This ETF buys companies in industries such as automobiles and components, consumer durables, apparel, hotels, restaurants, leisure, media, and retail. (Source: “RCD Profile,” Yahoo! Finance, last accessed May 17, 2013.)

With all this said, investors should keep in mind that consumer confidence is certainly a good sign for the U.S. economy, and it seems to provide the direction of the stock market—but correlation is not causation. Investors should always manage their risks and not get over-invested in one sector or asset class.

But what if you’re selling a service that can’t be packed into a box and shipped to your customers? That’s a whole different ballgame, right?

Wrong. You should approach selling a service on your website just as if it were a product. Even though you can’t physically sell a service to customers, you still want to guide them through your site as if that’s what you’re doing.

The danger of selling services

The problem many service-oriented websites face is a lack of clear structure and focus. Often visitors are expected to slog undirected through a mass of information in the hope that it will inspire them to pick up the phone.

For instance, I was recently on a site promoting outdoor exercise classes. Though the site was full of great content, I had to search for five minutes just to find the location of the classes. Most visitors don’t have this much patience, especially with the competition only a click away.

You can solve such problems of disorganization by creating a goal – a ‘product,’ if you will – that you guide visitors to your site toward completing.

Turn your service into a product

Part of the problem with services is that they aren’t tangible. Before you buy a product you can look at pictures, product features, and technical details to figure out exactly what you’re getting.

But services are often ambiguous and from a customer’s point of view, ambiguity is bad. People like to know exactly what they’re getting for their money. So you have to make your services as tangible as possible, turn them into a product, if you will.

Be specific. Let customers know exactly what they’re getting when they purchase your service. One of the easiest ways to do this is to create ‘packages’ with a specific offering of services at several different price levels. This will provide structure to your site and make purchasing much easier, preventing visitors from getting lost or overwhelmed.

Drive visitors toward completing a goal

The next step is to determine a goal that you want visitors to complete, one that will help convert them from visitors into paying customers. Depending on the nature of your business, you maybe be able to sell your service packages right there online. In this scenario, selling a service really is almost synonymous with selling a product.

If this isn’t feasible the next best thing for most businesses is to get in direct contact with potential customers. In this scenario it’s almost as if your contact info is your product.

Obviously it needs to be clear and easy-to-find. But you can’t just hope visitors will contact you. You need to make them go beyond viewing your content and take action. In marketing parlance this is known as a conversion.

When you’re selling a product, a conversion is usually pretty simple to define – it’s the point of sale, when the customer pays you money. For services it’s a little less cut-and-dried, but the basic principle holds true. You want to define an action that will help you sell your service and funnel visitors through your site toward completing that action.

If you can’t make a sale right there on your website, perhaps you could get visitors to submit a contact form that gives you their information. Or you could allow them to make an appointment right there online – think how easy ZocDoc has made it to schedule a doctor’s appointment. Other conversions could include creating an account, registering a membership, subscribing to a newsletter or email, requesting a sample, etc. Just be sure it will ultimately help you make a sale. Getting visitors to complete a conversion that doesn’t drive increased sales isn’t very useful.

Treating your service like a product won’t just make your site more user-friendly and drive your visitors toward taking an action that actually increases sales, it will also help hold your website and marketing efforts accountable. How can you assess the effectiveness of a pay per click (PPC) or affiliate marketing campaign if you don’t have a metric for conversions? How about determining the most effective content on your site?

Selling your service with the same focus that other sites sell products will increase sales and make sure your marketing efforts are getting the job done.

Somewhere in creating what is now one of the leading online retailers, founder Tony Hsieh established a state of mind ­– and ideal stemming from his own pursuit of happiness. Today, with 8 million products in inventory – from shoes to apparel – Zappos.com ships more than $1 billion in merchandise annually, each sent with the sole mission of delivering the same happiness.

I was lucky enough to take a guided tour of Zappos’ headquarters and call center on a trip to Las Vegas, and I left practically dizzy, not only from the sensory overload, but from the brilliance of the company’s customer engagement philosophy. In essence, Zappos generates loyalty by being loyal – to its customers, its community, its shareholders and its staff.

1. Zappos makes it easy

By eliminating shipping fees on returns, Zappos has removed one of the main barriers to ordering shoes online: size. Not only can shoppers order several different sizes and then send the misfits back for free, Zappos’ call center employees encourage it. The company also issues 1,000 return labels daily for customers who can’t print them online.

2. Zappos doesn’t leave you waiting

Zappos executives intentionally decided to build their central warehouse in Louisville, Ky., so that it could be strategically located directly next to one of the nation’s largest UPS facilities. Every UPS package passes through this location, so by being next door, each Zappos.com order arrives at the customer’s doorstep within two days.

3. Full of surprises

The Zappos team is given complete freedom to do whatever they think is necessary to create a PEC (personal emotional connection) with every customer. This often means they extend creative signs of appreciation, from waived shipping fees to a bouquet of flowers. During our tour, I came across a call center employee in the midst of creating a card for a customer who said her dog was going into surgery.

4. Makes heroes of its employees

Three key components shape the employee experience at Zappos: trust, empowerment and compassion. Zappos gives its employees free rein to make their own customer service decisions, even if that means spending hours with one caller. An on-staff life coach, meantime, works with all employees to set and achieve both personal and professional goals.

5. Zappos knows its customers

Zappos employs many of the tactics required to better understand and appreciate its customers. For instance, separate teams are assigned to handle calls, email, live chat and returns. The company is also experimenting with routing its customer calls based on area codes, enabling its agents to specialize in geographic regions.

6. Zappos shares

At Zappos Insights, outside organizations are taught how to improve their culture, their call centers and their customer experience. The basic tours of the Las Vegas headquarters are free, and attract 15,000 people each year. For an added fee ranging from $47 to $4,000 per person, Zappos offers everything from a Q&A with its Insights Team to a full day of training, plus coaching, with various key departments.

7. Zappos gives back

Tony Hsieh grabbed headlines when he announced that Zappos would relocate its headquarters to downtown Las Vegas – on his dime. The CEO is investing $350 million of his own money in downtown Las Vegas. Further, programs such as Project Read encourage donations to support important causes. Contributors can take a book for their $10 donation, which Zappos doubles.

8. Zappos recognizes the VIP

Zappos does not operate a loyalty program, but it has launched its VIP program to recognize especially loyal customers. VIP customers get free next business-day shipping on all of orders; they are pushed to the front of the line when call volume is heavy; and are sent email notifications when “hot” merchandise comes in. But be patient, there is a waiting list to join.

9. Zappos comes to its vendors

Zappos knows that business travel can be a grind, so it applies the same service that distinguishes its customer relations to its vendor partners. The company provides a fleet of transportation to shuttle vendors and suppliers from the airport to headquarters – by way of 17 shuttles or cars, a golf cart or a tractor. But take note: At Zappos, no ties allowed.

10. The Zappos Core Values

Rather than adhering to a mission statement, Zappos sets its moral compass to 10 core values, such as ”Be humble,” “Deliver WOW through service,” and “Be Passionate and Determined.” These core values were actually culled down from an original list of 30 such values, all of which were submitted by employees.