ECMW

I just heard a psychologist talking about how people perform better when they feel they are being watched or ‘on show’. It reminded me of Pine & Gilmore’s book The Experience Economy and the notion that all business is now theatre and your people are players.

It reminded me of last year’s European Customer Management World. Chris Daffy had invited some of us to a pre-conference dinner. Each course was introduced by the chef and then the servers swept in, around ten of them I think, from two doors on the side.

I watched them - five on each side of the long table - step back in unison and glance at the head waiter, who gave a small signal with a nod of his head, like a conductor of an orchestra setting the timing.

All ten moved forward at the same time, like dancers, and placed the next dish before the guest in front of them. Then they stepped back, all turned as if in military formation, and strode out the door. Some of them were smiling to themselves in satisfaction. I wanted to give them a round of applause.

This wasn’t serving a meal. It was choreographed theatre. It was art. When I was a student I used to be a room service waiter in the summer holidays, at a five star hotel. It was boring work with long hours and a gruelling regime in the kitchens when you ordered and collected the meals as the lowest of the low - the waiter (think lots of Gordon Ramsays shouting at you; on more than one occasion waving a meat cleaver at you that you had to duck to collect the dish you had ordered - I think it was their sense of humour. I hope so).

But these people weren’t at the bottom of a pecking order. They were artists on show, part of a flawless team. And they knew it. Whatever your sector is, you can do the same. The Geek Squad (I’m looking forward to interviewing their founder at ECMW next month, in the leadership track) even does it with IT service and repair.

All work is now theatre. Your customer experience will be all the better for it once you realise that.

Phil Dourado
www.PhilDourado.com

If you log onto http://www.TheBorgata.com The Borgata hotel, casino and leisure complex in Atlantic City, the website says “Take me to my happy place” just above the menu of things to do there. 

Only six words, but shows a real understanding of how to see yourself through your customer’s eyes and be clear on the part you are offering to play in their lives. 

Starbucks positions itself a The Third Place (a respite between home and work). The Borgata presents itself as ‘My’ Happy Place (more personal and also a lot clearer as a proposition than ‘The Third Place’, which means nothing to most people and is a bit pseud-y, to be honest). So, what part do you play in your customers’ lives? What place are you, from their perspective? How do you fit into their lives? This is the new marketing. It’s not about you as a product or service or company. It’s about you as a piece of someone else’s jigsaw, and about how you make them feel.  

http://www.PhilDourado.com Phil Dourado

‘Customer synergy is the highest level of customer service and it delivers the highest level of customer loyalty. Nothing is as powerful. And, with it, you can leapfrog the competition’.Who said it? Dr. Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Er…what does he mean? Well, as he’s going to be one of the keynotes at ECMW 2008 next month, I dug my notes out to give you a quick primer in advance. So, here’s your sneak preview of how to put the customer at the heart of your business, courtesy of Dr. Covey:

“Synergy happens when both supplier and customer are changed by the experience, creating something new that neither knows about in the beginning. That creates a bonding. Synergy assumes that a solution lies between ‘us’ and we find it together.

It takes a leap of imagination to craft customer service around the idea of synergy. But, as Einstein said: ‘Imagination is more powerful than knowledge’.

As the business climate evolves at white water speed, the danger to avoid is that of meeting new challenges with old, inappropriate responses.

You can avoid this disconnect between your organization and its customers by exploiting the four unique endowments that allow each of us to choose a course of action, rather than follow a prescribed and perhaps inappropriate response.

Many elements combine to produce customer service and they have to be aligned like a combination lock. Align and deploy them effectively within yourself and among your front line people and you will break down the four great barriers holding back most organizations that are trying to become more customer-centred:

i. No common purpose
ii. Low trust
iii. Disempowerment
iv. Misalignment ”

ABOUT THOSE SEVEN HABITS…

And, of course, you know what the Seven Habits are by heart, don’t you? Just temporarily misplaced them in the mental filing bank? Okay, here they are so you can impress someone by writing them on your sleeve and reeling them off in your next meeting…Don’t say we never give you anything:

i. Be Proactive
ii. Begin With The End In Mind
iii. Put First Things First
iv. Think Win/Win
v. Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
vi. Synergize
vii. Sharpen The Saw (renew)

But, of course you do all those things anyway, don’t you…

Posted by Phil Dourado, www.PhilDourado.com

Virgin’s group brand manager for customer service, Michael Murphy, will be talking to us at ECMW 2008 in an extended session on Wednesday 14th May, called ‘Living The Brand: Bringing The Brand to Life Through Customer Service’. Here’s an interesting slideshare from Michael that I’ve just come across that gives you a preview of some of his thinking and practice:

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Posted by Phil Dourado  www.PhilDourado.com

OK, they’ve got a more complicated real organizational chart. But, this is the one they use symbolically to remind everyone at all levels that their job is to relate to the customer first (even if they are in a backroom job like accounting, they are expected to constantly think of the impact on the customer of everything they do).

Do you have something similar? Steal theirs: It’s not proprietary. Copy the image, above, and email it around to everyone in your organization as a New Year reminder of what you are all here for. Just don’t forget to credit the ECMW blog by including this URL as the source, please: http://blogs.informa.com/ecmw . Thanks.Phil Dourado
http://www.PhilDourado.com

With the New Year looming, it’s time to think of what we’ll do differently and better in 2008 compared with 2007. Here’s one thing you can do: adopt ‘The New Golden Rule’.Every great religion has The Golden Rule at its heart – ‘Do as you would be done by’, or ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. It’s never been questioned. But question it in 2008. I learnt The New Golden Rule from Ken Pasternak, President, Inter Associates Ltd, who told me this:

Phil Dourado
http://www.PhilDourado.com