In a previous life I had a title of Customer Success Manager at a tech company. As the name implies, I was tasked with ensuring the desired outcome for our clients was met on every level.
Sometimes clients just wanted to be heard and I was a therapist. Other times there were specific business criteria that had to be achieved and I felt like a CFO that was building my case to deliver to the board.
One thing was clear though. Success meant different things to every client.
My title no longer carries that tag line of CSM but the desire to exceed customer expectations continues. As I am in a client facing role (and can’t imagine it otherwise), success is still top of mind within my interactions.
However, I sometimes wonder if I am truly achieving it and what is the measure for success?
We have all been delayed at airports. You fly more than once in your life and it happens. Typically I don’t get too upset, because a lot of it is out of the hands of the crew. They don’t want the delay either.
However, there are a variety of ways the crew can deal with it. I have seen some that ignore the issue and hope it goes away. Pro tip, it doesn’t. I have also seen crews decide to make it a party by giving out extra snacks or drinks.
Same situation, different outcomes.
As the veil is lifted between brands and consumers, it become easier than ever to vocalize your displeasure.
This has had the effect of highlighting those brands that are nimble and responsive and those that double down on the trashcan fire by pouring gasoline on it.
I’m looking at you United Airlines. #notafan
But what does success really look like? There are KPI’s, surveys and referral programs. In the end, success has many forms, but for me it comes down to this.
Was I happy with the interaction? Would I talk to a friend positively about said company?
That’s it. I know it’s hard to quantify, but, in my heart, those two questions are the key to success.
What could be the world’s first complaint about shoddy service is on a clay tablet that was first sent about 3,800 [BCE; they forgot to add 2,018 CE years to the total–ed] years ago in southern Mesopotamia from the city of Ur…
Here is an excerpt from it.
Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:
When you came, you said to me as follows: “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: “If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!”
What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? (…) Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.
What I found most interesting is that the complaint wasn’t limited to the shoddy product or the initial lies in service of making the sale.
It sounded angriest at being “treated with contempt.”
Update the product and delivery method and it could be a template for almost any 21st Century customer unhappy with a product or service.
Decades ago rotten customer service was more a function of little-to-no training and draconian scripts, but the advent of technology raised rotten customer service to new heights — think Ma Bell and Comcast.
And it was tech companies that added contempt to the rotten customer service recipe in ever larger doses.
If contempt is yin, then arrogance is its yang.
And there is no question that tech companies excel at arrogance.
I can no longer count the amount of events I’ve been to as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and with the exception of very few (I’ve mentioned the exceptions in my previous posts), most are a colossal waste of time and money. In fact, I view them as “preying on the weak, confused and desperate” company founders who seek ways to create their companies and products and get them funded.
I spent last Friday afternoon in Woodside at the Digital Marketing Summit with Geoffrey Moore put on by SVEN – the Silicon Valley Executive Network. To those of you who don’t know Geoff Moore he created the “Crossing the Chasm” framework based on the eponymous book he wrote on the commercialization of technology products and companies. He created the intellectual basis for what we, as entrepreneurs go through in building companies, and he is bringing a new and equally important addition to this work in the 3rd Edition of Crossing the Chasm – the Four Gears Model that describes the levers of growth for technology user adoption.
Though in the book he describes this as directed toward consumer adoption, it applies strongly to the B2B software business as well. The Consumerization of the Enterprise is in full swing and startups and large companies alike need to understand how this works and how to use it to generate revenues and profits. The Four Gears structure is a central tool for accomplishing this.
I only recently joined SVEN and this was my first event as a member. It was excellent – a good mix of large companies such as Cisco and Genpact mixed in with fast growing startups like Lithium and Bizo. The discussion was led by the founder or SVEN, Brian Reynard, who led the interesting discussion deftly and expertly. The topic was one of great interest to anyone building or growing a company.
Some of the interesting themes that came up in the Q&A were how to re-engage customers who had become disenchanted with the brand, the difference between B2B and B2C marketing, the new channels and how to use them and the entire framework of the Four Gears and how to tune them. By the way, I consider the concept of the 4 Gears as both revolutionary and very practical to implement.
The best aspect of the event was to hear CMOs from small and large enterprises describe their growth strategies and problems in an open manner and the ability for personally interfacing and making connections. Without a doubt, SVEN is one of the more useful organizations fostering networks and interchange between companies in Silicon Valley.
I just read an article about hurricane employees; referring to employees who “destroy the social fabric of the organization by creating friction, drama, tension and hostility among other employees.”
It’s an excellent article, but what struck me is how often good team players turn toxic during the holidays.
I’ve always said that people aren’t water faucets, i.e., there is no way they can spend 8-12 hours daily in a toxic culture or with an abusive boss and not have it affect their relationships and non-work actions.
By the same token, what happens outside of work affects attitudes and actions at work and what happens during the holidays is quite different from the rest of the year.
The holidays, starting at Thanksgiving, often include exposure to hurricane family members and excessive and/or unrealistic expectations that overwhelm normal coping capability.
That greater stress can disrupt mental equilibrium and negatively impact attitude.
The take-away here, whether you are the boss or not, is that if a team member becomes disruptive or has a sudden personality change talk with them and see what you can do to help.
Are you one of the thousands of managers who spend your days trying to increase productivity and improve your company’s bottom line and you nights worrying that you aren’t doing it fast enough—if at all?
Does your company hire experts to teach motivation and employee engagement techniques?
Do you twist in the wind trying to implement complex, sometimes costly, approaches?
Why?
Why complex when some of the smartest CEOs, advisors and academics are all saying the same thing?
Simply put, in the words of Tony Hsieh, if your employees are happy they will make your customers happy; if your customers are happy they’ll spend more; if they spend more your bottom line will grow.
Saturday I gave you multiple links showing just how simple and inexpensive engaging your people can be—but not everybody reads Saturday.
So, instead of writing yet another post on engagement, I thought provide a video from Guy Kawasaki, who talks about how to “enchant” your employees.
His advice is simple and doable, although it does require the right MAP.
The only cost may be to your ego, since in order to implement it you need to change.
Utilizing an outside-in approach means focusing on delivering something of value to customers, as opposed to focusing on products and sales.
Gulati discusses 5 key levers from both “why” and “how”:
Coordination: Connect, eradicate, or restructure silos to enable swift responses.
Cooperation: Align all employees around the shared goal of customer solutions.
Clout: Redistribute power to “bridge builders” and customer champions.
Capability: Develop employees’ skills at tackling changing customer needs.
Connection: Blend partners’ offerings with yours to provide unique customer solutions.
Gulati is blunt and his approach isn’t for those who prefer incremental change to revolutionary, but it is MAP that will stop many leaders from embracingReorganize for Resilience—because you can’t implement that in which you don’t sincerely believe.
Since the advice to be customer-centric isn’t new, following it isn’t easy and may actually require difficult, even painful changes to your MAP, so why bother with Reorganize for Resilience?
Because it carries the biggest bottom-line payoff, both short and long-term, in any economy and for any company—from Fortune 50 to the neighborhood copy shop.
First, I had reason to contact CrystalTech (my host) and had another great experience. In spite of being acquired over the years (twice, I think) tech support has always been fabulous. The reps spend as much time as necessary on the phone with me until this tech dummy understands.
Second, I came across an old video that, along with being hilarious, is a graphic answer to what customer service is NOT.
Restaurants have much in common with other businesses, especially when it comes to innovation. Like lemmings they copy each other, trying to keep both customers and the Center For Science In The Public Interest happy. Not an easy task.
However, anyone who ever watched Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Channel knows that not all toe the line; there are plenty that focus on pleasing the former and say to hell with the latter.
It’s called thinking way outside the box and the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, AZ is the leader of the ‘to hell with’ pack.
Heart Attack Grill is a great example of how an innovative combination of delicious, socially unacceptable food and a culture of exceptional customer care turned a restaurant into a destination and a major hit with people who aren’t intimidated by the food police.
A couple of decades (give or take) ago Terry Dial, who eventually became vice chairman of Business Banking at Wells Fargo, told me that“People are 90% of our costs as well as the key to customer service and satisfaction. The only thing that should take priority over hiring a new employee is keeping a current one.”
Stershic’s written a book called Taking Care of the People Who matter most: A Guide to Employee Customer Care. The meaning of the title hits the nail on the head, “It’s based on the impact employees have on customers; namely, the way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers!”
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Enter 
Stershic’s written a book called 
