Is incivility a root cause of service failure?

I'd like to share a not so radical idea.

Is it possible that the rude, self-absorbed behavior that many people display in public is one of the primary causes of poor customer service?

I recently ran a few errands around town and witnessed the following examples on my short trip:

• A couple enjoying coffee and pastries at Starbucks left a huge mess behind when they got up to leave.
• An aggressive driver cut off several cars in an attempt to beat them to a traffic light.
• Another driver sped up in a parking lot rather than stop for pedestrians.
• A customer at a car wash left his empty coffee cup on a bench when his car was ready.
• A banking customer cut to the front of the line ahead of other people patiently waiting their turn.
• A work truck ran a red light a narrowly missed running into several cars entering the intersection.

Some of these people assuredly work in jobs where they serve other people. If they behave selfishly, even dangerously, in a public setting can we really believe that they will be so different when helping customers? Maybe a little, but not much.

Most of my blog posts are action oriented and I try to provide a few tips you can use right away. This one is a little different, simply because I don't know the answer. Any ideas?

A tale of three stores: how service drives sales

Service makes a difference when mattress shoppingMy wife, Sally, and I recently went shopping for a new mattress. We visited three stores that had the same products, similar prices, but vastly different levels of customer service. Guess which one we went with? Once again, proof that customer service drives sales in a retail environment.

Last Place: Nightmare service

The worst example came at a mattress store near our home. As we walked through their door, we heard a guttural, "Howyaguysdoin?" from across the store. We both looked in that direction but couldn't tell who it came from since nobody was looking our way. After a minute or so, a woman approached us and revealed herself as our greeter by repeating, "Howyaguysdoin?"

If you haven't purchased a mattress in awhile, the process generally involves lying down on a bunch of mattresses and trying to imagine how comfortable you'd be sleeping on each one. Our salesperson made this fairly impossible because she never stopped talking. She told us about the great deals they were offering each mattress, about the cutting-edge technology integrated into the designs, and then somehow segued into her personal medical problems. None of those topics had anything to do with whether we'd get a good night's sleep on a particular mattress, and her medical history threatened to give us nightmares.

I'm sorry life dealt you a rough hand, lady, but that approach was a huge turn-off. 

Distant 2nd: Slow service, dirty ceilings

We also visited a major department store where our salesperson was nice, but he was too busy to be helpful. We had to wait a few minutes while he served another customer, which wasn't so bad, but after we caught his attention it was hard to keep it. He left us repeatedly to serve other people while we were trying out various mattresses and discussing their pros and cons. Each time he left us, it made us less enthusiastic about shopping there. It also gave us time to notice things like their incredibly dirty ceiling.

Holy cow, that ceiling was gross! Seriously, store, lie down on one of your mattresses and look up at your disgusting ceiling and tell me if you feel restful. 

The Winner: Dan at Sleep Train

Our winning salesperson was Dan at Sleep Train. The Sleep Train store was nicely organized with sparkling clean ceilings, so the deck was already stacked in their favor. However, Dan really nailed the customer service aspect of the sales process. Here are just a few things he did right:

• He greeted us immediately and introduced himself.
• Dan asked questions to get to know us and our needs.
• He encouraged us to try out various mattresses and adjusted the models he showed us based on our feedback (too hard, too soft, that sort of thing).
• There was silence, glorious silence, while we tried each mattress, but Dan remained nearby to immediately answer our questions.
• Dan didn't discuss price until we had picked our top choices. He realized that price was irrelevant if the bed was uncomfortable.

Service Pointers

In retail, service can have a huge impact on sales, especially on bigger ticket items. Here are just a few take-aways from our mattress-buying experience:

• Train your sales staff to first identify their customers' needs and tailor their pitch accordingly.
• Literally see things from your customers' perspective so you won't miss problems, like dirty ceilings in a mattress store, that are costing you sales.
• Consistently remind your sales staff that their job is to solve their customers' problems, not dump their problems on their customers.

How processes can hurt customer-focus

I’m picky when it comes to ordering breakfast at a restaurant, so I almost always order a la carte. And, almost always, my meal arrives on several plates. It’s a minor annoyance, though it's become expected. 

Combining my a la carte items onto one plate seems like such an obvious move, but there’s a simple explanation as to way it infrequently happens. The culprit is process.

Why is process to blame?

Processes get drilled into employees’ heads. That’s how they learn and it’s often how they’re managed. It’s also how work flows in many service environments. As a result, it's what employees often focus on.

Take my a la carte order for example. It’s not a specific meal on the menu, so the server has to ring it in as individual items to generate a price and get the order into the kitchen. Plating my entire meal on one dish requires the server to think outside the normal process and consider my needs as a customer. Again, it seems obvious, but here process usually causes the server to lose customer-focus.

Why is customer-focus so important? 

The rare server who puts all my breakfast items on one plate really stands out. My colleague, Liz, recently wrote to tell me about a similar experience she and her husband had where the focus was on her and not the process:

“We frequently stop for a sandwich at Great Harvest Bread Company in Temecula. Their sandwiches are enormous, so we only eat half, and save the other half for the next day’s lunch. Apparently their staff has noticed, because the last time we visited, they served up half the sandwich in the basket, and half in a to-go bag. It was a very pleasant surprise, and you can be sure we will remain loyal customers.”

In another example, a client of mine recently asked me to develop some sales scripts for his call center employees. After a spirited discussion, he agreed to let me develop guidelines that would help reps steer the conversation towards a sale while using their own brains and personalities to adapt to each customer’s unique needs. My client initially feared that his reps would be inconsistent without a strict script to adhere to, but thankfully he relented. Customers aren't the same, so why should we approach each on the same way? The results have already started paying off in the form of increased sales. (See a previous rant about scripts here.)

How can you achieve customer focus?

A good place to start is by designing customer-focused processes, such as using broad guidelines rather than scripts.

Training can help too. For example, cashiers often give change by scooping coins out of their till, grabbing the bills, and then flipping the whole thing into the palm of the customer's hand. The result is the loose coins end up on top, making it more difficult for the customer to put their money away. A customer-focused way to do it is take the extra half-second necessary to place the coins in the customer's hand first. Last week, I received an email from Jesse who reminded me how this little move can make a big impact:

"I had a cashier who was aware of this very small thing and just by consciously giving me my coins in a manner that let me put away bills in my wallet first, I felt like it was the best customer service I had gotten all week! And all I got was a small juice at a coffee stand.  Also because she gave me change first it was easier and quicker for me to tip her with a bill."

Would you lose a customer over 50 cents?

Would your business be willing to risk losing a customer over 50 cents? I know one that is.

I received a surprise when I reviewed the latest bank statement for one of my business accounts. My bank had imposed a mysterious 50 cent fee for something called "Currency Straps Ordered." It wasn't a lot of money, but I didn't want my bank to get in the habit of charging random fees, so I decided to give them a call.

You may already know what a Currency Strap is, but I had to do some digging to find out. It is a bundle of cash that has a paper "strap" around it to keep the bills together. Banks give them to businesses who work with cash. I've also seen them in quite a few action movies and spy thrillers when someone has a dufflebag full of cash.

My consulting business doesn't use currency straps, but I was still charged 50 cents for one. How?

I had visited my bank branch to deposit some checks into my account. At the end of the transaction, the teller had asked if there was anything else she could help me with. I realized I needed to get some tip money for an upcoming trip, so I asked her to give me change for a $20. Little did I know that this was considered a "currency strap" in the banking world. Gotcha!

The teller didn't advise me of the 50 cent charge, or I certainly would have gotten change elsewhere. It may be in the fine print of my banking agreement, but I don't remember seeing it. This fee was an unpleasant surprise.

It took 15 minutes on the phone with a customer service representative and then a branch manager to get to the bottom of this unexpected charge. To her credit, the branch manager quickly reversed the charge and was empathetic, but she also explained this was their corporate policy.

I'm now thinking of moving my accounts to another bank. It's not just the 50 cents, but all of the fees I've had to worry about avoiding lately. This bank clearly wants to make their money on fees, not service. 

Customer Service Tips

• The only surprises your customers should ever receive are pleasant ones. 
• Nobody likes fees. 
• It's probably not worth Chase-ing a customer away for a lousy 50 cents.

Companies fall short on measuring customer service

I recently conducted a survey to determine how companies were measuring the effectiveness of their customer service. The results were disappointing, though not at all surprising.

How do companies measure customer service?
A whopping 25% of respondents don't formally measure their customer service at all. If you aren't trying to measure something, it's hard to make the case that it's important. Maybe this is one of the reasons customers receive poor service so often these days.

Of the companies that do measure service, surveys are the most popular option. Here are the results:

Do companies set goals for customer service?
The survey also asked whether respondents set measurable goals for customer service. Failing to set goals for customer service is like spending money without a budget -- it's really hard to tell how well your're doing. Yet, 37.5% of companies don't set measurable goals. Here's the breakdown:

Does company size matter?
The survey also included an optional question on company size by revenue. The goal was to determine whether larger or perhaps smaller companies were more likely to measure service. The results were inconclusive, though many participants opted to skip this question.

I set out to discover what companies are doing and instead found myself focusing on what companies are not doing. What do you make of the results?