Shep Hyken's Blog, page 144

The More You Give the More You Get

There is an old saying: It is better to give than to receive. The interpretation of this is that giving is an act of kindness. There is another old saying: The more you give, the more you get. So, is the act of giving truly an act of kindness, even if you know you’ll receive something back, and even if you don’t know exactly what it is? I think so, especially if the act of giving has no strings attached – even if giving more means you get more, then it truly is an act of kindness.

This is true in life, and part of life is business. Giving is part of the customer experience. Customers like to receive, and when they do they return the “favor” by spending their money with you. In modern times, we call this The Law of Reciprocity. Zig Ziglar, the late and great motivational speaker summed it up well when he said, “You will get all you want in life if you help other people get what they want.”

I recently attended a great presentation from Shashi Seth, the senior vice-president of Oracle Marketing Cloud, who spoke about the concept of reciprocity in business. It’s simple. If someone does something for you, you will naturally want to do something for them. He then added that this works for human beings who are classified as “givers,” but for people classified as “takers,” it has little effect. The good news is that the world has many more givers than takers. Can this be proven? Yes!

If you have ever received a fortune cookie or a mint with your bill at dinner, you have, according to Seth, been a “victim of reciprocity.” He proved this with research. When the servers at a restaurant bring a check to their guests without a mint, the diners will tip according to their perceptions of how good or bad the service was for that meal. When servers add a mint to the check, the tip jumps up 3.3%. Two mints and the tip jumps to roughly 20%.

Seth explained that the Freemium business model is based on the law of reciprocity. Give someone something for free, and the customer reciprocates by spending money. And, it’s much bigger than an after-dinner mint. For example, Spotify and Pandora have created streaming music empires by giving away free versions of their product, which is financially supported by advertisers. However, both offer an upgrade to a paid version without advertising. Some of their customers pay, which results in approximately 50% of their revenue.

You don’t have to be a big company like a Spotify or Pandora to offer up something free. It can be something inexpensive, like a piece of candy with the dinner check. Or it can be something digital like an eBook, special report, or a video. As long as it has some value to the customer – and that there are “no strings attached.”

So, what can you give away that your customers will appreciate? Remember, the more you give, the more you get.

So, here’s something “free” from me… a special research article based on my latest book, The Convenience Revolution. This book will help you disrupt your competition – and maybe even an entire industry! Just click here!

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Amazing Business Radio: Jim Iyoob

Artificial Intelligence Combined with Human Intelligence; the Future of Business Transformation

What can you do to help create an effortless customer experience?

Shep Hyken sits down with Jim Iyoob, the Chief Customer Officer at E-Tech Global Services, to discuss the balance between AI and human interaction and how to deliver a convenient and effortless customer experience.



Top Takeaways:

In the past, companies owned the narrative and customers had little control. With social media and various omni-channels, the control has transferred to the consumer. Companies like Apple, GoDaddy, and Amazon understand this simple fact and use it to their advantage to gain market share and win customer loyalty.
89% of customers will stop doing business with you if they have a poor customer service experience. 86% of buyers will pay for a better customer experience.
Throughout history, nothing has changed in customer service from the standpoint that the goal has always been for the customer to walk away saying, “That was a good experience, I’m going to come back.” What has changed is the technology that allows us to offer a different level of service that is faster, more convenient, effortless, and easy.
Jim warns companies against buying technology that makes things easier for themselves without taking into consideration the effect it will have on customers and the agents delivering the experience.

Quotes:

“AI without human intelligence can become disastrous.” – Jim Iyoob

“If you want to lead in the market, deliver a world-class customer experience.” – Jim Iyoob

About:

Jim Iyoob is Chief Customer Officer at E-Tech Global Services and the author of Delivering Customer Service That Matters.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

What makes a great customer experience?
What’s the difference between convenient and effortless?
What’s one question customers ask themselves before choosing to do business with you?
How can customer service bring you more repeat business?
Can artificial and human intelligence be used together to improve customer service?
How do I best use A.I. in customer service?

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5 Top Customer Service Articles for the Week of July 16, 2018

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

7 Customer Service Lessons from the Best Uber Driver Ever by Neil Pasricha

(Fast Company) This Toronto Uber driver has maintained a 4.99 rating after driving nearly 5,000 passengers. When I climbed into his car, I found out why.

My Comment: I love a good story about a cab driver. (I’ve been telling the story of a cab driver for years in my speeches). This first article of the Top Five roundup for the week is a story of an Uber driver who absolutely gets the customer experience. Some very valuable lessons that apply to anyone who wants to deliver a great service experience. My favorite of the seven lessons is number three, which is to recognize that no matter how often we do what we do, it might be the customer’s first time.

A Comprehensive Career Guide For Aspiring Customer Experience Managers by Shruti Sarkar 

(Omoto) Not many people understand what a customer experience manager does or how to become a successful customer experience manager. In this article, I will take you through everything that you need to know about how to build a career in customer experience.

My Comment: This article is a comprehensive guide about the role of the customer experience manager. Plenty of great information here to get you thinking about the different responsibilities that go along with the job, and the impact a good CX manager can make. If you don’t have a customer experience manager, this article may convince you it’s time to do so.

A Better Customer Experience In The Future? You Can Bet On It by Christopher Elliott

(Forbes) If you think a better customer experience isn’t in your future, you must be a traveler.

My Comment: What does customer experience look like in the future? Christopher Elliott gives us a glimpse into what the CX will be like in the travel industry – and I think you’ll like it!

Talking About Repeat Business is Worth Repeating by Richard Shapiro

(TCFCR) I tell retailers to focus on how to get even one customer to purchase again. Then expand that and if a retailer can get 10% of their clientele to purchase two or three times during a year, think of the significant impact on revenues and profitability.

My Comment: This is a short article, but it packs a punch. The message is clear. Focus on creating a repeat customer. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, increasing the number of customers who come back, even by just a small percentage, has a big impact on your bottom line. This article is a simple reminder of the importance of creating repeat business.

Why Customer Churn is Inevitable if You’re Not Closing the Loop—At Every Level by Ian Luck

(CustomerGauge) In 2017–2018, CustomerGauge collaborated with MIT CISR for their NPS® & CX Benchmarks Survey which surveyed 468 companies to assess Net Promoter® and customer experience strategies and practices across industries. The findings confirmed many held beliefs within the CX industry around closed loop practices, but also uncovered an increasingly urgent narrative around companies churning customers as a result of sub-optimal closed-loop practices.

My Comment: What do you do with feedback, once you get it? Do you circle back to the customer and “close the loop?” It’s one thing to get customer feedback. It’s another to do something with it. In this article, you’ll find some great insights on how to properly “close the loop” with your different types of customers.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs go to www.TheCustomerFocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Blog: The Customer Experience is Not Just for B2C

This week we feature an article by Christa Heibel about how investing in a personalized customer experience can create life-long customers in the B2B space. – Shep Hyken

If you’ve been habituated to think that the customer experience (CX) is strictly for B2C (business serving customers) verticals, you’re not alone. Most businesses have traditionally focused on separating the customer experience from B2B (business serving other businesses) channels, or not giving it adequate attention because of the general perception that it is not as important when selling to other businesses.

However, given the overall increased focus on customer satisfaction over the last decade or so, it makes business sense to overhaul or rethink your B2B customer experience as well. Remember, your business client is also a customer. At the end of the day, you are still selling to a person.

Relationship Building in B2B for Customer Retention

Relationship building is just as crucial in B2B as in B2C for some very good reasons. Taking the time out to build rapport and manage long-term commitments with your business clients yields huge dividends when it comes to retaining client loyalty over the long-term. Your business client always has a choice – to stay or to take their business elsewhere. They are more likely to stay if they have a good relationship with you, like you, and trust you.

Ease of Contact and Responsiveness

Customer satisfaction is rated consistently higher in B2B experiences where there is an Omni-channel approach and an almost immediate responsiveness. To evaluate the ease of contact and responsiveness, consider the following:

How seamless is the sales and contact customer experience across multiple channels and devices such as desktop, mobile, phone, chat, and email? Also, consider the website and social media channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn. You will want to give flexibility to customers to make it easy for them to reach out to you.
How quickly do you respond to customer inquiries and how do you make sure that the customer journey is satisfying?

Understand the Customer, Improve Satisfaction

Customer mapping is just as essential for B2B as it is for B2C. Customer mapping involves tracing the entire customer journey from the first point of contact all the way to the completed sale and identifying points where the experience may need to be enhanced. B2B companies can leverage collected data to uncover customer preferences, demographics and trends—all of which reveal a better understanding of the customer’s needs.

Stumbling blocks at any stage during the process flow, whether it’s in the product or technology, the experience with the sales personnel, or the overall methodology, can significantly impact whether the customer wants to continue to engage with you and complete the sales process.

The insights that you get from customer mapping can also help you to significantly refine your marketing efforts by giving you more information about the actual pain points of your customers and the audience that you should be specifically targeting.

Customer mapping and leveraging invaluable customer data can even provide organizations with a means to provide proactive service. Typically, companies provide reactive customer service—agents solve customer issues as they arise. However, proactive companies greatly improve the customer experience by creating excellent processes and foreseeing potential customer needs. For example, HP Instant Ink allows their customers to select an ink subscription where new cartridges will be sent on a pre-determined basis. This proactively resolves the problem of running out of ink, which is a main pain point with customers worldwide.

Knowing Where B2B Differs in the Customer Experience

While there are several similarities in the way you approach the concept of customer experience management for B2B and B2C, there is one significant difference that needs to be taken into account to get the best results. In a B2C environment, you have just one party to impress, which is the end-user.

In a B2B however, there can be multiple stakeholders involved, in which case, a more meticulous approach may be required to balance the interests of upper management, various departments such as legal, finance, marketing, and their own customer mapping systems.

Final Words

While it is tempting to integrate all manner of systems, technology and processes into your B2B process to improve the customer experience and proportionately increase your profits, this should not by any means take away from the basics:

Giving as much priority to customer retention as you do to customer acquisition.
Empowering your customer-facing teams and giving them the tools to go beyond training guides to actually taking ownership of the customer experience.

It’s also important to understand that no two customers are the same. Yes, customer journey mapping is important, but a customized experience versus a cookie cutter approach tends to resonate more with customers. It might seem like a costly and time-consuming endeavor, but there is no doubt that investing in a personalized customer experience can create life-long customers.

Christa Heibel is the Founder/Owner of CH Consulting Group where she leads a nationwide network of Customer Experience Consultants that specialize in the Omni-Channel Contact Center. Christa brings 25+ years of contact center experience to the table where she has successfully developed, implemented and managed numerous contact center operations across the U.S. 

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Articles:  The Best And Worst Companies To Do Business With

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How to Create a Very Personalized Customer Experience

I just stayed at the Crowne Plaza in Lansing, Michigan. I’ve stayed at many Crowne Plazas in the past, and they are nice hotels, however, the experience at this one was quite unique. It was a personalized experience, and the way they went about it is an excellent lesson we all can learn from.

First, the concept of personalization is to make the customer feel like the experience is somewhat unique to them. If I’ve stayed in a hotel and made a special request, the hotel may note that in my record, and the next time I stay at that hotel, they might remember the request so I don’t have to ask.

What the Crowne Plaza Lansing did was different. Before I go any further, you need to know a little about me. You probably know I travel around the world delivering keynote speeches on customer service and experience. I log about 150,000 miles a year as a “road warrior.” I also have hobbies. I do card tricks and magic. I also play guitar. So, now that you have some background, here’s the story.

When I walked into my room, I noticed a note with a shoe shine kit. It was handwritten and read: This will work wonders on the shoes of a road warrior. Then I noticed some beer. Not just any beer, but a special brand called Double Magician and Staff Magician. I’d never heard of these brands, but apparently, it was a local brand. I also noticed a guitar. A note next to that read: We heard about your hobby. Thought you might enjoy making a little music during your stay! From your friends at the Crowne Plaza. WOW!

And, finally, when I returned to my room that night there was not the customary mint that some hotels leave on the pillow. There was a plastic top hat with a chocolate bunny in it – as in the magician’s rabbit in the hat trick! Holy cow! Actually… Holy chocolate bunny!

So, I had to find out who was responsible for this and say thanks for this unbelievable experience. That person is Robin Goodenough, and she and the Crowne Plaza team are amazing. What did they do? Simple. They Googled my name and found my profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. It was easy for them to see what my interests were. From there, they wowed me with a personalized experience.

Some may find what the Crown Plaza team did to be a little “spooky.” I didn’t. If anyone posts something on a social channel like Facebook or LinkedIn, they should anticipate that others will see it. And, using the information posted for the purposes of creating an amazing and personalized customer experience, well there’s nothing wrong with that.

Thank you to my friends at Crowne Plaza Lansing! You created a truly memorable experience. Can’t wait to come back and visit you again!

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Amazing Business Radio: Jim Rembach

Building A Winning Culture From Within

How to create a customer service culture that solves customers problems, increases revenue, and drives loyalty.

Shep Hyken discusses frontline leadership, conflict resolution, and customer loyalty with Jim Rembach, the president of Call Center Coach.



Top Takeaways:

There are six core reasons why frontline supervisors fail.

Lack of interpersonal skills
Lack of strategic skills
Lack of conflict avoidance skills
Lack of trust building skills
Poor decision-making skills
Poor training


Over 80% of people leave jobs because of their relationship with their frontline supervisor.
In today’s business world, frontline supervisors are just as important as senior leadership. They interact with customers and employees day in and day out.
Companies who retain their customers the longest establish an emotional connection with them. This includes (but isn’t limited to) being friendly, knowledgeable, trustworthy, and credible.
When a customer has a complaint, find ways to get alongside the customer instead of butting heads and creating conflict. Ask them questions so that they realize you’re on their side and want to help them solve their problems.
According to research, customers who’ve never had a negative experience with you are not as loyal as customers who’ve had a negative experience that was quickly resolved.

Quotes:

“Over 50% of people promoted to a front line supervisor role fail because they’re not developed and given the opportunity to learn.” – Jim Rembach
“Customer service skills comes from real life experience.” – Jim Rembach
“Our mindset will drive our behavior.” – Jim Rembach
“The power of relationship (between employees and management) is what drives customer engagement.” – Jim Rembach

About:

Jim Rembach is the president of Call Center Coach. He previously helped AutoZone open their call center, which revolutionized the way stores, customers, and customer service agents interact. He is a founding member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and currently hosts his podcast, the Fast Leader Show.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

How do you handle customer complaints?
What are organizations doing that prevents their employees from doing amazing work?
How do you retain customers long term?
What questions should you ask angry customers to better solve their issues?

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5 Top Customer Service Articles for the Week of July 9, 2018

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

How to Deliver Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Customer Experience by Deb Miller

(CMSWire) I ordered new products and services from my provider last month and in the bargain had to endure some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad customer experience.

My Comment: Want to deliver bad customer service? Then read this article. Want to deliver good customer service? Then read this article. I enjoyed the author’s sarcastic approach to what companies do to fail their customers. (I especially like the first one, which is to treat new customers better than your loyal customers.)

Poor Customer Service Costs UK Businesses £37 Billion by Stephanie Liais

(RingCentral) UK businesses are losing billions of pounds each year as consumers continue to demonstrate their intolerance for bad customer experience. Technology has been driving fundamental changes to the global economy, leaving many companies struggling to hold onto even their most loyal customers.

My Comment: This article comes from our friends in the UK and starts with the stat that £37 billion (pounds) is lost due to poor customer service. (That’s almost $50 billion USD.) What can we do to make sure our company isn’t participating in this major hemorrhage? Start by reading this article.

6 Tips For Delivering The Best Customer Service Possible by Himanshu Agarwal

(CustomerThink) Customer service representatives are problem solvers who need to react quickly, efficiently, while maintaining a compassionate and nourishing relationship with customers.

My Comment: Here you will find a good list of six ideas that will help any business deliver a better customer experience. And, while some are standards you read and think about often, a few are not – and those are the ones you should pay close attention to.

The Accidental Customer Experience by Ian Golding

(CustomerThink) I often write my blog posts and articles whilst traveling on either a train or an airplane. Although I can also be found hunched over my laptop keyboard in hotel rooms at twilight hours, the confined space of a metal tube traveling at high speeds is the perfect environment for me to commit my thoughts into words.

My Comment: Customer experiences should not happen by accident. They should be purposeful and intentional. To start, the author has provided three questions worth discussing with your team. Don’t leave the customer experience to chance!

The Role of AI in Customer Experience [Infographic] by CallMiner

(CallMiner) It seems like everyone is talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is affecting our lives at home, at work, as well as how we communicate, shop and consume media. And AI is changing the customer experience!

My Comment: We close this week’s Top Five roundup with an infographic on AI that includes some interesting – and incredible – stats and facts. Fifty percent of people interacted with AI in the past year – and didn’t realize it! The graphic shows what AI is, what it isn’t, what it will look like in the future and more.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs go to www.TheCustomerFocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Blog: Using Sales Contests to Lift Customer Experience

This week we feature an article by Natasha Postolovski who shares the idea of using sales contests to help motivate and promote a higher level of customer experience at your organization. – Shep Hyken

Customer experience is the most important factor in the success of a retail business. In fact, in highly competitive industries where brand loyalty is fleeting, companies cannot afford to deliver anything less than a perfect customer experience, or customers may take their business elsewhere.

The aim to provide perfect customer experiences must be present not just at the organizational level, but at the level of every sales associate. I believe that fun and friendly contests are one of the fastest and most effective ways to motivate high performance among sales associates.

Contests are time-limited challenges that bring sales associates into alignment with your organization’s goals. Here are just some of the things you may choose to focus on:

NPS (Net Promoter Scores)




Sales revenue






Upsells




Promotions






High-margin products




New product lines






Loyalty and rewards programs




Team vs. Team






Store vs. Store




Product knowledge

Contests can last for as little as an hour, such as when a regional manager visits a store location, or as long as one month. In general, sales contests result in an atmosphere of fun and friendly competition. Sales associates love to be challenged, and they love to be challenged in new ways. Aside from boosting performance during the contest, I’ve found that participating in a shared challenge brings sales associates closer together and helps them work more effectively as a team.

If you believe a sales contest could help motivate a higher level of customer experience at your organization, here’s how you can get started.

Choose your sales contest focus

Focus your sales contest on behaviors that will help create perfect customer experiences. This can be direct, via competing around Net Promoter Scores, or indirect, via competing around sales revenue. For employees to maximize revenue per customer they must build trust with the customer, and this means providing the perfect customer experience.

It’s worth noting that the benefits of sales contests don’t end when the contest does. The true purpose of every sales contest is to build beneficial habits that will last long after the contest is complete.

Choose your participants



Whether your contests occur at the level of sales associates, teams, stores, or entire regions will depend on the size of your business and your organizational goals. I often find that contestants are more motivated when grouped together according to their baseline performance. For example, smaller stores may be pitted against stores of a similar size, with large high-performing stores pitted against each other. This ensures everyone is enthusiastic about the competition and that winning does not seem out of reach for lower performers.
Choose your rewards



To be most effective your sales contest should include prizes. I’ve found that giving sales associates a choice of smaller prizes can often be more motivating than a “one size fits all” larger prize. If you plan to hold multiple competitions over a longer period of time, consider giving your associates the ability to save up their winnings for a more significant prize of their choosing. In general, I’ve found that cash prizes tend to be the least effective, as they can encourage a transactional mentality. Wherever possible, try to offer physical prizes like gift cards, electronics, and movie tickets.
Choose your timeframe and rules

It’s best to be extremely clear up-front about the terms of your sales contest. This will ensure that all participants have realistic and accurate expectations about how the contest will run.

When does the contest start and end? Be mindful of time zones if your stores are widely distributed.
When will winners be announced?
Which prizes are on offer, and how can sales associates win them?
How will prizes be distributed to winners?


Inform your staff



It’s time to get your sales associates prepared and excited for your sales contest. In addition to telling them about the competition face-to-face, you may want to post something on a staff noticeboard, or online if your organization uses a workplace engagement platform or intranet. By placing the rules and relevant information in a public place you’ll minimize time spent answering questions and clearing up confusion.
Make progress visible



It’s important that at any time during your sales contest your sales associates can check their progress. After all, you’ll get much better performance from a sales associate who knows they’re in second place and close to clinching first, compared to a sales associate who doesn’t know where they stand in the rankings. You can use the staff noticeboard for this, or an intranet page.
Celebrate contest winners



It’s time to announce the results and celebrate the winners. Sales associates are motivated by rewards, but recognition is just as important. Make sure to gather everyone together and publicly recognize and congratulate high performers for their efforts.

Sales contests are tools you can use to align staff around store or company goals. They’re fun and effective, and I have seen them lead to sales revenue increases as high as 5%. Most importantly, they help to build lasting habits that will improve customer experience long after the contest is over.

Natasha Postolovski is Content Manager at Arcade , a rewards, recognition and communication platform for retail sales associates and their managers.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Articles:  Half Of U.S. Employees Are Actively Searching For A New Job

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Strike the Balance Between the Digital Experience and the Human Experience

Technology is great… until it’s not. You are on a website. A little box pops up and there’s a picture of a customer service rep with a typed message asking if you need help. So, you type a question, and just a moment later you get a response. That’s the perfect scenario. But, what happens when the response is wrong? I was on a website looking for a camera for my notebook computer. The chat box popped up, asking if I needed help. I typed in a question about the camera and the response was about what computer I was interested in purchasing. I had no interest in buying a computer. The digital experience had gone awry.

There needs to be a balance between the digital and human experience. A total digital experience is not always possible. If a customer needs support, a chatbot may not have all the answers. The best chatbots have been programmed to understand when it doesn’t have an answer or the customer is confused. At that point, the chatbot moves the customer from the digital experience to a human experience, as it seamlessly switches you to a human to continue the conversation. That’s the way it should work – just at the right point, moving to the human experience. That’s balance.

There are other forms of digital experiences. Zappos is the online retailer that makes it easy to connect with a customer service rep. They know customers will have questions, and even though they are an online company that sells off their website, they make it super-easy to connect with a human.

And, sometimes the experience moves from human to digital. For example, I may call to talk to a support rep. Maybe I have a “how do I do this” type of question. The customer support rep can simply tell me and walk me through the steps, and that may take some time. So, maybe a better option is to send me an email with explicit instructions. Or, maybe send me a link to a video that shows me, step-by-step, how to accomplish what I’m having trouble with.

So, how does a company strike a balance between digital and human? The answer is knowing where to cross over between digital and human – or the other way around. And, that point of the crossover is when there is friction. At the point of friction is the right place to switch. In the examples I just provided, there was a point of friction. The chatbot knew when to flip me over to a live agent. The customer support rep knew I would have a better experience watching a video tutorial. Once you know the point of friction, you can strike the balance between the digital experience and the human experience, giving your customers the experience they deserve.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Amazing Business Radio: Michael Redbord

Turning Happy Customers into Brand Advocates

How will chat and chat bots transform customer service in the near future?

Shep Hyken discusses turning customers into viral promoters, a new customer-focused growth model, and the next phase of automated customer service with Michael Redbord, GM of the Service Hub at Hubspot.



Top Takeaways:

Redbord shares the five rules of a customer-centric organization.

1) Knowledge of your customer

2) Applying the knowledge

3) Listening and prioritizing

4) Execution

5) Communicating
How to use NPS (Net Promoter Score) to target your best customers, a.k.a. promoters, who are most likely to take the extra time to advocate for you. Then, create a win-win situation for your customers so you can go on the journey of mutual growth together.
Hyken and Redbord both see a trend in customer service becoming more self-service as customers become less patient and want faster access to the answers to their questions.
Redbord urges that making customers more successful is the key to business growth.
The Flywheel model, which takes the traditional business growth model and uses customers to create virality, brand amplification, and scalability. Your customers can be your best marketers and growth engines.
There are three customer-service trends that will likely happen in the future (and already are).

1) Face-to-face communication – As trust diminishes and people feel more disconnected, showing your face is going to be a big deal.

2) Chatbots – People are less patient today, they want answers now, and they expect a 24-hour presence.

3) Self-service – Is an absolute necessity, especially for small and medium-sized businesses.

Quotes:

“Every decision that’s made has to have the customer in mind.” – Michael Redbord
“Your customers define your reputation. They will become your best marketers or your worst enemies.” – Michael Redbord
“Customer-centric design is about walking in your customer’s shoes, understanding where they’re at and working backward from there” – Michael Redbord

About:

Michael Redbord is the GM of the Service Hub at Hubspot. He’s built out a customer success team of 20 people in a single office to a global team.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

How do you introduce customer service into a company’s culture?
If you don’t directly interact with a customer, how do you impact their experience?
How can you start a customer experience (CX) movement?
How can employees engage with executives?

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