A Lot of People, Teams and Companies Make This Mistake!

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Although the principle is noble in customer service when trying to create a personalized, authentic, hassle-free experience, the golden rule of “treat others how you want to be treated” does not work.

In the world of customer experience, in the world of customer delight, in the world of trying to create a personalized, fast, flexible interaction, it is important to treat the other person how they want to be treated.

Stop and think about customer service and human-to-human interactions for a moment.

Customer service and personalized interactions are unique because they are produced, consumed and evaluated simultaneously.

In order for you and your team to ensure you are treating your customer how “they” want to be treated, it requires feedback.

Another common mistake most organizations and most leaders make is they don’t ask smart questions when trying to get feedback.

Let me say it a little differently.

Most organizations and leaders ask dumb questions and they get dumb answers.

Let me give you a real life illustration as context for the point I am trying to make.

I think it is pretty safe to say everyone reading this has been out to lunch or dinner at a restaurant that has waiter service.

I think it is also safe to say that in the course of your dining experiences, at one point or another, a restaurant manager has come up to you and asked you a dumb question similar to this, “Hi! Thank you for coming in today. How was your meal?”

Of which, 99.99% of the time you and everyone in your party replies with, “fine.”

If there was a problem with the meal you would have already notified the waiter.

If the manager is going to take your time and invest his in asking a question, wouldn’t it be better that he asked a smart question? A question that would allow him and his team to improve your experience with a smart answer?

Let me give you an illustration.

“Hi! My name is Pete. I’m the manager today. I see that you are lucky enough to be waited on by Stephanie. She is one of our finest servers. I see that you all tried something different from our menu today. I wanted to stop by and first thank you all for coming in and more importantly, ask you if there is one thing we could do different to make your experience even better?”

When you ask that type of question, it is what I call a smart question, because you are going to get a smart answer.

I define a smart answer as something that allows you, your team and your organization to take action so that you can make the experience faster, better and positively different next time.

So remember, when it comes to creating personalized, authentic, hassle-free experiences, you have to treat others as they want to be treated, then get feedback to make sure you hit the mark. If you want to read more, you can download Get Personal With Your Customers here.

Click here to view the graphic below:

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Republished with author’s permission from original post.

Peter Psichogios
Peter Psichogios is the President of CSI International Performance Group whose mission is to help companies create engaging employee and customer experiences. Prior to joining CSI International Peter served as an executive member of one of the largest Instructional System Association companies in the world. In this capacity, he led all the front-end analysis and worked directly with Dr. Ken Blanchard. Peter has been fortunate to work with the who's who of the Fortune 500, helping them deliver innovative learning, engagement and recognition solutions.