Pratt Sean - Delight your customers: 7 simple ways to raise your customer service from ordinary to extraordinary

Delight Your CUSTOMERS

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Curtin, Steve.

Delight your customers : 7 simple ways to raise your customer service from ordinary to extraordinary / Steve Curtin.1 Edition.

pages cm
Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-8144-3280-8ISBN 0-8144-3280-8 1. Consumer satisfaction. 2. Product management. 3. Organizational change. I. Title.

HF5415.335.C867 2013

658.812dc23 2013004338

2013 Steve Curtin.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Illustrations by Aaron McKissen

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Printing number

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On December 15, 2011, I received a four-sentence email from literary agent Michael Snell. Thus began an 18-month odyssey culminating with this book.

Like most ventures into the unknown, there was a cast of characters that provided the guidance and expertise needed to reach the goal. Without the counsel of Michael Snell during multiple iterations of the book proposal over the course of several months, Delight Your Customers would have remained the book inside me waiting to get out.

After Michael found a home for the project at AMACOM Books, I worked with senior editor Bob Nirkind. Bob provided direction, structuring a lot of meandering ideas into a clear roadmap showing readers how to better serve customers. As we neared the journeys end, we received expert help from associate editor Jim Bessent and illustrator Aaron McKissen.

As I reflect on the books customer service message, Id like to thank the many colleagues during my 20-year career at Marriott International who defined and modeled the difference between ordinary and extraordinary, including: Mark Conklin, Ted Scholz, Susan Belleville, Jeff Gray, Jean Cohen, Ray Falcone, Victor Aragona, Eileen James, Nancy Curtin Morris, Curt Newport, David Toomey, Brian ONeill, and the late John Barclay.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without support at home. Im grateful to our intrepid nanny and budding novelist, Amberle, for lending her copyediting talents along the way. And to the love of my life, Julie, and our four amazing children, thank you for your encouragement throughout this adventure.

Delight Your CUSTOMERS

Y ears ago, I worked in New York City with an English woman named Karen who had a unique work history. During graduate school in England, she had worked on an assembly line in a factory that manufactured dolls.

Karens job role was to attach doll heads to each of the torsos as they passed by on a long conveyer belt. As she described it, as the torso approached, she would lift a doll head from a large bin, pop the head on the torso, and twist it firmly until it locked into place. One by one, Karen would lift, pop, and twist the dolls heads into placeeach one like the last oneuntil her quota was met or her shift ended. The next day, she would return and repeat the process over and over again: lift, pop, twist lift, pop, twist until the end of another workday. I can still hear Karen describing her job duties in her refined British accent: Leeft, paup, tweest Leeft, paup, tweest Leeft, paup, tweest

To this day, whenever I observe an employee who is simply going through the motions, Im reminded of Karens job at the factory. I refer to this demeanor as a factory mentality. Perhaps you too have observed this outward behavior by service industry employees. Its easy to spot, characterized by indifference and a transactional approach to serving customers.

Expressionless, robotic behavior devoid of any personality may be permissible in a factory or warehouse environment where there are no signs of real, live, paying customers (as long as certain production quotas and delivery schedules are met). However, in a customer service job role, employee behavior must be different.

This is not a book about how to WOW! customers by continually surpassing their expectations and exceeding their needswhich is unsustainable. Most people dont want outrageous or over-the-top customer service at every turn. In everyday service situations, most customers simply want to be acknowledged and appreciated.

Delight Your Customers is about doing the little things that convey to customers that they matter and that their business is valued. Its about breaking with routine by consistently providing the little extras that leave lasting positive impressions on customers. After all, the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.

sets the stage for delighting customers by identifying the two dimensions of every employees job role and identifying three truths of exceptional customer service. Whether you are new to the service industry or a seasoned veteran, this section will expand your definition of employees roles and is likely to influence the way you manage service providers.

introduces seven concrete behaviors that will enable you to immediately improve the quality of customer service you provide or influence. These seven simple ways to raise customer service from ordinary to extraordinary are natural and intuitive. Rather than offering scripts or a prescriptive acronym that requires employees to be someone theyre not, these behaviors encourage employees to be themselves at their best!

provides fresh thinking about incorporating your organizations highest priority into existing employee functions so that exceptional customer service, however it is defined by your particular organization, occurs consistently rather than being left to chance.

Throughout the book, you will see references to customers, clients, guests, shoppers, passengers, patients, members, and more. The lessons in this book will apply, regardless of how you refer to your customers, even if your customer is an employee, owner, vendor, or other stakeholder. In fact, Id go so far as to say that these lessons also apply to the customers you serve in your personal life, whether that means a spouse, children, friends, neighborseven complete strangers.