service Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

26
Aug 21
-

Recognizing Options On The Way To High Performance

Tags : customer customer satisfaction performance service workplace

What are your habits when it comes to workplace performance? Are you good at recognizing options, or do you follow the way it has always been done?

When you are trying to delight the customer, impress the boss, or simply check the box on your to-do list, do you consider the options?

A customer in a business suit and tie might have a different napkin requirement for eating an ice cream cone when compared with the house painter fresh off the job in a t-shirt and jeans. It’s an option to offer a few more.

If your supervisor has an urgent need for the report you’ve just finished, you’ll probably forward it by using email. It’s an option to also give a quick call, send a text message, or swing by the office to provide an urgent alert that it is completing and now arriving in the email inbox.

All of the items on your to-do list probably come with options. You have the option to do it exactly like before or exactly as described, or you have an option to enhance the product or service.

There may not always be options. The circuit board needs to be completed exactly as designed. It is true for the engineering of the house, the assembly of the gasoline engine, and the building the Model X vacuum cleaner.

Yet for many jobs, there are options.

Recognizing Options

The best performance may come from options.

Options that delight people will yield stronger future partnerships. In some cases, a customer is a customer. In other cases the customer becomes a business partner. And certainly, there is also a customer relationship with a supervisor and direct report. If you can’t spot it, you might be coming up short.

The difference between providing the least required value and the best possible value exists in the options you spot and deliver.

Your service performance will leave an impression. Whether it is in an official capacity that is recognized as an action of service, or whether it is the opportunity option you decided to explore.

Without any options, service (or job performance) is simply accepted. It’s never really great.

-DEG

Creating great customer service may be more of an art than it is a task. It is why I wrote this book:

Get it on AMAZON

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

25
Feb 21
-

Serving Everyone May Take Away Value

Tags : growth marketing service value

Does your business pride itself on serving everyone? Does the quest for more numbers flatten your value, or grow it?

Most businesses or organizations have a specific market. A segment, a group, a commonality that allows them to provide value to a piece of the pie, but not the whole pie.

Yet, it is often commonplace that people work really hard to accommodate the needs of everyone.

This has a price. The price is often that in the attempt to serve everyone they aren’t really great at serving anyone.

One user on the network, is just another user. Another product on display in Amazon’s website, just another potential source of revenue.

This may be true at the hospital, just another patient. It’s often true at the Pizza shop, the grocery store, and with your electric service provider.

Many of these service offerings don’t really make a big investment in you. They make and investment in the numbers. Yes, you may be one of them, but that’s it, just a number.

Serving Everyone

Some of the best service providers are building it with you which is not exactly the same as building it for you. Building it for you often scales to building for the number. It is the effect of the enterprise and the economies of scale.

Emerging software companies often start by building it with you. They are interested in your needs, the features you love, and the bugs that you discover.

The successful program starts to shift as the economy of the enterprise grows. They start building it for you. It is the attraction of the product, the marketing hype, and for the end-user, it’s a quest to remain part of the group.

Once they fought for you, now they fight to use you as a number in their game.

It is a similar concept for getting something for free. Sign up for the free webinar, the chance to win, or the no-cost obligation. If you aren’t paying you are not the customer, you are part of the marketing team. The goal is more numbers.

High value comes from those who are building it with you. The stakes are different and so are the outcomes.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

23
Dec 20
-

Customer Requirements Are About Knowledge

Tags : customer requirements expectations quality service value

Are you meeting customer requirements? How do you know?

Perhaps the first step in analyzing whether the requirement has been met is to be certain you understand who the customer is. Not all customers are external, and not all customers are the end-user or consumer.

When you ask someone quickly about a customer, they often connect with the idea of retail shopping. The simple concept is, a person walks in, inquires or purchases goods, and at some point, leaves the store.

There are many assessments of customer touchpoints. Everything from websites to telephone calls to the receipt of goods shipped.

Customer service is a broad subject to say the least.

Are you meeting the requirements?

Customer Requirements

In the workplace, people are often suggesting that they did their best work. They tried hard, worked extra, and now take pride in the finished product.

However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they met or exceeded customer expectations.

Building a good product or delivering exceptional service is always judged by the customer, not the builder.

Yet, every day the builder attempts to communicate the delightfulness of their goods or services.

It is challenging for the builder. They really have to know and understand the customer. This is exactly why many businesses are built around users of products or services in an attempt to make it better than the current best offering available.

Build a better car, a better television streaming experience, a better cell phone, a computing device, or even a better dish washer.

It may be challenging to build a better shovel, a better garden rake, or even a better ceramic coffee mug. Commodity products are often defined by the service associated with the sale.

Quality intersects with value.

It all begins with understanding the customer requirements.

Does every employee of your organization understand the customer requirements?

This is always the best place to start getting better.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

19
Oct 20
-

Caring Gracefully Is In Short Supply

Tags : culture production psychology of work selling service

Caring gracefully may be exactly what your organization is missing. Are you stuck between offerings and volume? Are the big box stores or eCommerce sites rattling your cage?

How will you compete?

The best way to get more is to bring it all to scale. Scaling your product and services is the best way to get bigger and often, yes, get better.

Where will you invest? Time, money, or people? Perhaps all of those?

Scaling not Failing

The small mom and pop restaurant will often fail when they try to expand. The small repair shop struggles to compete with the franchised option. And your product on shelves in Walmart, Best Buy, or available from Amazon may attain a different scale when compared with the small retail shop or static webpage.

The difference may come from the investment that many leaders overlook. The investment is in driving purpose which drives caring.

Many organizations and businesses insist that they are family-oriented. They insist that working in one of their shops, warehouses, or production facilities is just like being part of a big family.

Is it true?

Caring Gracefully

Talk is cheap and true caring comes with a price.

The price is the sacrifice that people make when they care more.

It starts with a well-defined purpose. Achieving the metric matters but it isn’t achieved in dollars and cents. It’s achieved when people care enough to push more, push harder, and pull it off.

A deeper level of caring means everyone understands why quality inspection seeks perfection and not just to be good enough. It’s why packaging matters and the brand is built from a reputation not the size of the facility or number of locations.

People who work together for a common cause, who are smart, value learning, and want to do the job right are far more likely to achieve more than the competing organization that cares less.

The small shop or the multimillion-dollar franchise. The retail store or the eCommerce site. Caring gracefully matters.

Buying state-of-the-art equipment is one price to pay. It will never be enough to beat a team that invests in purpose and caring first.

It’s often hard to find.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

04
Aug 20
-

Never Been Done Before, That’s What You Need

Tags : different leadership new product service

Everyone is forced to change. Some are willing, others are waiting and watching. Do you need to do something that has never been done before?

I’m not sure who deserves credit for this, but there is a saying, “You cannot just do things differently, you must do different things.”

Now is a great time to consider where you stand with different things.

A product built in your garage as a hobby may be cool, but if it never goes to market, it’s not a game changer.

The service model that sets higher expectations yet can’t be replicated as a system will likely implode.

Avoidance, from fear of failure or fear of success will limit what is different every time.

Where are you headed?

Never Been Done Before

Doing what hasn’t been done before requires something extra.

It’s creative, and it requires you and everyone involved to be on the hook. The energy behind it becomes contagious. It is valued, needed, and a game changer.

Trust and relationships will flourish with a game changer. You’ll make something happen.

People who join in near the beginning of the curve will benefit the most.

Those jumping in late will completely miss the power of the curve and may become a statistic for failure. Not because of lack of effort, energy, or ingenuity, but because, it’s been done before.

A starting question is, can you trust yourself?

Are you able to put a product or service to the test and succeed at doing something different?

Will you find your voice, your ideal customer, and possibly create a niche?

Is it different, or really just the same thing done differently?

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

15
Jun 20
-

Brand Experience Impacts and the Unexpected

Tags : brand marketing sales service touch points

At the car wash, the grocery market, and the restaurant you have an experience. What are customers feeling from your brand experience impacts? Are you sure about every touch point?

The valet at the 5-star hotel, the guy sweeping up cigarette butts in the parking lot, and the janitor plunging the clog in the bathroom.

An incredible waitress, a kind flight attendant, and the nurse at the doctor’s office.

A fast-food voice on the intercom, the hardware store clerk, and shipping verification from an eBay purchase.

All of these things, no matter how big or how small they may seem, are part of a brand experience.

Unexpected Experience

Many people believe that your brand sits entirely on the hands of the graphic artist, the photographer, or a clever press release.

Indeed, all of these things matter. They matter a great deal. Yet, often, your brand is about unexpected touch points.

Businesses want to train their sales team, the customer service team, and managers. These are not the only people or places where your brand is exposed.

Where is your brand exposed?

Everywhere.

Brand Experience Impacts

What is the weakest link in your business? It may be a touch point where your brand is exposed.

What employee teams are not customer facing? Who is in the backroom, the warehouse, or on the R&D team? They’re still building your brand.

Who answers the phone, responds to social media, or sends email messages? To the customer, in each of those moments, that is what they know as your business. Not the CEO, not the beauty of your website, and certainly not the marketing speak in your mission statement.

The impacts of your brand are loud and clear.

They’re often developing from human interaction.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

27
Nov 19
-

Relentless Effort is a Part of Service Interactions

Tags : effort mindset outcomes persistence service

Are you giving relentless effort? Sometimes it feels like a thankless job. Does it make a difference for future outcomes? Yes.

Mindset is powerful and often we need to shift the concept of problems to opportunities. Opportunities can be much more attractive when compared with problems. Mindset starts with a choice.

When it comes to service interactions, you have a choice about how you will accept the outcomes of your efforts.

Say, “Hello.” to a stranger and you may or may not get a response. You took the risk and you accept the possibility of no reaction, or worse, perhaps a negative reaction.

Applying Relentless Effort

Relentless effort is about multiplying this effect across time. A one-time deal isn’t nearly as effective as repetitive daily pursuit.

One stumbling block for relentless effort is having the willingness (it’s a choice) to accept what happens next. When you are committed to your choice, you’ll have the energy, even in the face of adversity, to try again.

You may ask yourself this simple two-part question, “What is the opportunity in front of me and am I willing to pursue it relentlessly?”

Persistence matters, and persistence across time is relentless pursuit.

You have to be willing to accept what happens next, even when the results may not be desirable.

It makes a difference for what you’ll do next, and that, makes a difference for what happens next.

-DEG

Two Resources

I wrote both of these books to help with relentless effort. Get them on Amazon.

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

26
Nov 19
-

When Service Expectations Get Set

Tags : culture customer service organizational service workplace

Who decides about the quality of service? Hint: The customer. When do service expectations get set? Hint: Usually long before the product or service is received.

Are you conscious about expectations and outcomes? They matter for service, they matter for workplace change, and they will matter for everything connected to your culture.

Service Expectations

Traveling on Interstate 80 you can go from New Jersey to California. If you take this journey, or only some of it, and you’ll see road signs and billboards. Some of those will be for rest stops, food, and fuel.

If you make a choice to eat at a restaurant franchise, you have an idea of what to expect. You’ll make your decision to enter the establishment with your expectations already set.

If you make a choice to eat at an unknown restaurant, perhaps a mom and pop, upon entering you may not be sure what to expect. You’ll decide on your expectations quickly though, it often starts with the sign along the highway.

This is true for nearly everything about service.

It is why we decide we’ll trust some websites and others not so much. It is how we’ll make decisions about the shoes we buy, the clothes we wear, and the car we’ll drive. The expectations are set long before the sale.

Beyond products and services, it applies to your workplace too.

Connecting Service Internally

Certainly, in the workplace there are internal services. We know we can trust Sally with the project, yet we’re still not sure about James.

We’ll use our senses, our intuition, and our life experiences to decide.

The change handed down from the C-Suite will feel safe or it will feel conflicting. Work teams will decide to embrace it, move it forward, or perhaps slow it down.

It is true for the exit we’ll take from the highway. It is true for the change we need in the workplace.

Service expectations are the best predictor of outcomes.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

23
Jan 19
-

The Friction of the Customer Journey

Tags : customer experience customer journey friction service

Gaining traction is desirable. Inspire connections, build the brand, and grow revenue and profit. Yet, there may be another force associated with traction, friction. Are you reducing the friction of the customer journey?

Creating a password that is more than nine characters, includes a special symbol, at least one capital, one number, and uses no formal names is friction.

In contrast, securely storing your credit card information for one-click purchases in the future reduces friction and improves traction.

Customer Journey

The customer journey is often created by looking through the lens of the account manager, the content developer, or the artistic contributor. Mostly, they represent traction, no guarantee of a smooth glide.

Taking an airplane flight involves a journey. A ride to the airport, security, baggage check, hurry-up, and then wait. What reduces the friction? Uber, CLEAR, and the Admirals Club.

Security on your handheld device may be valuable, a point of traction. For example, a four-digit pin is nice. Reducing the friction of the journey happens with a fingerprint reader.

Waiting for your boss, the CEO, or the chairperson of the board of directors to ask for engagement may grant you traction. Anticipating requirements in advance and delivering before being asked reduces the friction.

Understanding Friction and Traction

Friction promotes job security for the auditor, the gatekeeper, and the hall monitor. All may be important, but perhaps not to the customer.

Mostly people seek traction. They are searching for ways to create a permanent link, a lasting connection, a vow that’s hard to break.

Traction is security, a sure thing, a requirement to return in the future. Reducing friction creates engagement with less effort required for the customer.

Your customer may tolerate your desire to gain traction. What they’ll appreciate the most is when you reduce the friction of their journey.

-DEG

Originally posted on January 23, 2019, last updated on May 4, 2019.

Reducing the friction of the customer journey is directly connected to your organizational culture. It is why I wrote this book:

Customer service culture

Get it Now on Amazon

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

21
Nov 18
-

Do You Understand Your Competition?

Tags : competition price sales service

Every day we are competing. We’re competing through our business, competing to close the sale, or competing to achieve a promotion or get a new job. Do you understand the competition?

We may or may not know who the competition is with, but do we understand what we’re competing on?

Parameters of Competition

If you are focused on the size of the cake or the presentation of the dessert, how it tastes may be an afterthought.

The most durable laptop computer probably isn’t the most slimmest. The fastest car probably is the biggest or even the most comfortable.

What are the parameters of competition?

Here are a few of the most popular:

Service: When we compete on service our focus becomes about the delivery. Time, speed, and satisfaction.
Trust: We work hard to illustrate examples of trust. We work to show loyalty, commitment, and perseverance. Promises kept, not broken.
Image: While often very subjective our time and energy are spent on what you see.
Credentials: The focus of the card punch. Are the educational degrees attained? The certifications valid and current? Are they issued from a reputable source?
Price: Value is the afterthought, everything that matters is based first on price. If it is available everywhere at the same spec, price is the only differentiator.

Competing on What?

Understanding your competition is important, but you must first understand what you are competing on.

In the best scenarios you’re competing on what matters most to you. Your passion drives the focus and results. However, what brings you to the forefront of your offering may not be what the customer is buying.

A focus on quality may mean a higher price. An abundance of effort on image may drive questions about what is under the veil. Questions about credentials may signal a lack of trust.

What are you competing on? What matters most to the buyer?

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

Tag Archives: service

Aug 21

-

Recognizing Options

Feb 21

-

Serving Everyone

Dec 20

-

Customer Requirements

Oct 20

-

Scaling not Failing

Caring Gracefully

Aug 20

-

Never Been Done Before

Jun 20

-

Unexpected Experience

Brand Experience Impacts

Nov 19

-

Applying Relentless Effort

Two Resources

Nov 19

-

Service Expectations

Connecting Service Internally

Jan 19

-

Customer Journey

Understanding Friction and Traction

Nov 18

-

Parameters of Competition

Competing on What?

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