Being Remarkable At Work And Life

By day, I’m an account manager for a technology and software company. It pays the bills, provides another level of purpose to my life, and offers one more laboratory to practice workplay philosophy. After working primarily in the non-profit sector for the past ten years, life in the corporate world has been interesting. There are some surprising differences and even more surprising similarities. The fact is that organizations, regardless of whether they are non-profit or corporate in structure, share characteristics at their core. I have an upcoming series brewing on this subject…when I manage to finish the current series on reflection (and who knows when that will occur). Hopefully, this serves as a preface to any upcoming posts (like this one) that tie together my experiences in account management and customer/client relations with the workplay philosophy.

When it comes to account management and working with clients, there’s always a baseline level of service you can provide. The specifics may differ, but generally it all boils down to being responsive and being respectful. It really is as simple as that. However, let’s go beyond these baseline expectations and enter the more meaningful space of being remarkable. The challenge of being remarkable is that it’s different for everyone. Every client desires something that is unique to them and their business mission. What one person expects as customary service may WOW someone else. But hey, if being remarkable was easy everyone would be there…which is why so few make it to the party.

Today’s challenge is to ask yourself: What does being remarkable look like when I serve this particular client or customer? And you can apply this same question to other areas of work. As a manager, what can you do to be remarkable in service to each of your employees? As a trainer, what can you do to be remarkable in service to each of your students? As a professional, what can you do to be remarkable in your own field?

I use the idea of remarkable for a reason. It’s built on Seth Godin’s idea (or at least he’s the one who made it remarkable for me) that if you want folks to talk about you, you have to give them something to talk about. In our case, we want to be remarkably kick-ass awesome. So, being remarkable means understanding what a client’s baseline expectations are and brainstorm all the different ways that might WOW them.

If it’s important to you, then it’s worth being remarkable.

In Service To Our Clients

I experienced a moment of lucid learning today that’s well worth sharing. Hopefully, this will resonate with you, particularly if you work directly with customers and clients in a relationship-building capacity.

I have a client who is delightful in most ways, but is rarely specific in their requests. They sort of know what they want to achieve, but have a hard time communicating this with me. In the current case, they know they want a new website design for one of their events but that’s the extent of it. They know the design should be similar to the rest of their site but also different. This could mean nearly anything which is frustrating when trying to scope a project and understand their needs. What adds to the frustration is this lack of clarity (or at least lack of clarity in communication) is typical to how this client approaches our work together. It’s increasingly obvious that the client needs help in getting more detailed about what they want…which is leading up to the equally obvious trap of me knowing exactly what this client needs and how they need to do it.

In our project planning call today, I decided to take a stern approach with them. The overall tone of my voice was “look, it’s time for you to get your act together if you want this work done.” I didn’t say it exactly like that, but that was the vibe that I communicated. With some clients, I can take this approach and be okay, but for them it clearly wasn’t what they needed at the time. I later found out through my partner that I seemed ‘angry’ and ‘more hostile than usual.’ Yeah…big red flags.

Through this encounter, I recalled an important concept from my coaching training: each action should always be in service to the client. If you think about it, that’s actually a liberating idea. It opens up the opportunities for how we interact with our clients. If he or she needs to be encouraged and have their confidence fostered, then a coach can approach from this angle. And if he or she needs a loving kick in the rear, then that approach is also viable and honored as long as it is in service to the client and their ultimate needs. The danger is approaching as I did, which clearly did them no service. My actions actually diverted them from their overall objective.

So, what’s the learning?

1. Know the client and where they want to go.
Building the proper relationship with our clients is vital to a healthy, long-term partnership. There are no short cuts on this one. In order to help a client define and create their future, it means understanding what makes them unique, what fuels their purpose, what they most desire from your product or service.

For those who practice good client communication, that’s usually as far as they’ll go. Here’s the challenge: take it deeper. Actually make it a goal to know your client as an individual. Why do they work for themselves or their organization? What is it that personally drives them? What defines success for them? Knowing the answers to these questions is what separates the true partners from the service providers.

2. Match tone and approach to their purpose not our own.
This means putting our own personal preferences aside. If we’re getting ready to deliver a good stern lecture to a client who is waffling in their decision-making, we’d better be prepared to honestly ask if this is our preference or whether it’s truly in service to the client’s needs.

It also means setting our own emotional attachments aside. If a client’s indecision is driving us nuts, getting pissed off at them is not going to help them get where they need to go. That doesn’t mean their indecisiveness gets ignored…it’s still important to be open about it’s impact on their business objectives. We’re still trying to practice a caring partnership and that means sometimes addressing tough subjects. The key is to do it in a way that moves them toward their goals rather than farther away.

More Ways To Cultivate Remarkable Customer Service

Via David Gammel at High Context Consulting, I came across this fantastic article from Joel Spolsky called Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service. I really don’t know much about Joel’s company, Fog Creek Software, but if his article is any indication of what it would be like to be his customer, I’ll be giving his products a thorough review.

What’s compelling about the article itself is Joel’s way of making his points through stories. He could just say, “Here’s what you should do to create remarkable customer service,” but he goes further to give real-life examples of what works and what doesn’t work. Like the time he visited the locksmith or the time he overheard a customer complaint in a diner.

Check out Joel’s (bonus) step eight: Give customer service people a career path. Radical indeed when you consider that customer service staff are usually stuck at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy and payscale.

If your organization’s customer service needs a tune-up or a complete overhaul, take a look at how one company is changing the rules to build a better experience for it’s customers and employees.

Thanks, David.

Creating You-Focused Value

When you get positive feedback from your customers, which would you rather hear (or read):

You are a rock star!
or
You are a rock star because you helped me figure out how to solve this problem that’s been a major pain in the ass for months!
or
I feel like a rock star because you helped me figure out how to solve this problem that’s been a major pain in the ass for months!

That third option tends to throw us for a loop. I mean, how are you supposed to take a compliment when the giver focuses on themselves and how they feel. They should be giving you all the credit, right?

If that’s your thinking, then consider a different view. It’s always gratifying to hear how great we are. We want to feel appreciated, particularly after working to help someone else. And if you’re in the services industry and managing relationships, it’s beneficial to know that the work you do is making a difference for the customer. It’s useful feedback. But consider the ultimate purpose behind your helping action. Did you do it for your own gain or to truly help someone else?

Kathy Sierra puts this into the context of a user product review. The juicy bit is toward the bottom of her post:

We don’t want our users talking about the company or the product. All that matters is how they feel about themselves as a result of interacting with our product. How they feel about us has little impact on whether they’ll become loyal (let alone passionate) users. All that matters is what we’ve helped them do or be (emphasis mine).

That last sentence makes a huge difference in our interactions and relationships with our customers. It takes the notion of providing service and begins the transformation toward delivering value. Service is about what we do for others (me-focused). Value is what they get out of the transaction (you-focused).

This idea can even extrapolated out into different areas. Even if you don’t work with customers, consider its ramifications for other individuals in your life. Aim to create you-focused value when helping your kids or volunteering at a local soup kitchen. Remember that it truly is all about them.

Finally, use this as a template when it’s time to pass on feedback to someone else. If you start off a compliment with “You’re a rock star,” finish it off with specifically why they rock. And if you’re feeling adventurous and think the recipient will fully grasp your meaning, tell them “I feel like a rock star because…”

Sit On The Same Side Of The Table

It’s end of year, which means trying to get my life back into focus. As an example, over this past Christmas holiday, I spent some time getting our new home in order. Interspersed with all the yuletide merriment, I decided to get medieval on all the unpacked boxes and disorganized clutter that had accumulated over the past six months.

The psychic rewards of this end of year cleaning blowout have been great…not only do I know where things are, I found a lot of items I had been searching for recently, including some past issues of my favorite magazines. Last night, with a glass of shiraz in hand and the girls in bed, I sat with the September 2006 issue of Fast Company which happens to be focused on customer service (it’s the one with Lewis Black looking like he’s in the first stages of trying to pass a kidney stone).

Inside the issue is an article on Danny Meyer, a successful New York restaurateur, who believes his winning edge comes down to hospitality. Big deal, right? We might expect a restaurant, as well as a hotel, spa, or even theme park to focus on hospitality. But, take a minute to fully consider Danny’s concept of hospitality:

Virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any transaction. Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side.

Danny encourages us to elevate the idea of a transaction beyond the usual impersonal financial payment for a product or service. All that typically gets us on the corporate side is a headache where the customer demands ever-increasing levels of service because they’ve handed over their hard-earned money. And who can blame the customer anyway? Many companies have done their very best to betray their customers’ trust by focusing only on the business’ end of that transaction (read: bottom-line profits). In the end, this narrow view of the transaction simply devolves into the all too-familiar customer/corporation antagonism.

Instead, what would happen if we think of the transaction as a binding force for a relationship? How would our business change if we acknowledged that a transaction is not only a financial exchange, but also an exchange of feelings, hopes, and dreams? What if instead of sitting across from our customers at the table, we chose to sit on the same side? A fella isn’t just buying a new silk shirt, he’s buying an image that makes him feel more attractive. A group of friends aren’t just eating dinner, they’re paying for an experience that accentuates their time together. A non-profit organization isn’t purchasing for a new piece of software, they’re buying a tool that will help them be more successful at delivering on their mission. There’s so much more to the customer’s side of the transaction, but it’s up to the business to learn what it is and make the attempt to fulfill it (fully bearing in mind that this ideal isn’t always possible).

As you begin plotting out business goals for 2007, consider the impact of sitting on the same side of the table as your customers. If you have a disgruntled customer or client, ask what it would take for them to believe that you are on their side.

What are you doing today to create an active spirit of hospitality?