Once again the customer dance with the personnel at the daily ball of arguing, bargaining and haggling trying to get to an agreement once again. The frustration is enormous and the customer and the company representative are miles away from each other almost trying to produce an intergalactic conversation in their own language. A solution seems impossible and the employee feels frustrated of the customer not recognizing great customer care if it is thrown at him. The customer on the other planet it frustrated by the pebbles he is offered and feels that he is treated unfairly.

Why is the conception of customer care so different?
It is all about anticipation. The customers have certain anticipations. They expect to be treated fairly*, they expect to feel special*, they expect to be right*, they expect to get help*, they want to get the problem solved*, they want compensation* and they want to talk to qualified people*.

* No, you do not get to decide what this is, the customer decide what is right, what the company can do to help and what it takes to make them feel special. This is your challenge. If you opt an opinion on what is the correct amount of compensation, if you think that fixing a problem within a day is good, you might be wrong. It might not be what the customer is expecting.

Some of the time I hear customers and my call center employees disagree, and all of a sudden the customer ask to speak with me. Why did they not manage to agree? This is something that I have been wondering about for a long time and this is an ongoing challenge. Well speaking to me won’t always necessary solve the problem either! And no, I am not going to blame the customers.

The problem is created by failed modifications of expectations. So to create the correct expectations we need to be totally honest (almost). Do not promise what cannot be kept. We will have it fixed by tomorrow is very provocative if the problem is solved in two days. If a problem takes five days to fix, tell the customer it takes six days to fix the problem. He might be pissed at the bad news, but on day five he would be happy. Get the happy feeling to arrive at the end. If you promise one day, the happy feeling comes at first, and the angry feeling comes on day two, the insane feeling on day four.

Customers do react negatively if the first message is that it takes long, it’s difficult, and it demands extra effort for the customer and so on. So do disappoint them right up! How long does it take to be served at this restaurant? 20 minutes! – “What?! Are you mad?” and when the food arrives ten minutes later, she will be thrilled feeling special, and amazed. I have dined at a restaurant with two stars in the Michelin Guide ordering a five course meal, eating a seven course meal, as the chef held two special surprises “just for us”. We felt like royalty. I think you know what I mean? Normally this problem takes five days, but I shall see if I can push it forward to three days, if that is ok by you? (The best thing is if you already know that this problem is solved in two days.) It is all about setting the expectations at a level that you can jump.

Avoid NO – NO is a NO NO!

• No, I am sorry, this won’t be fixed today, it will take four days
• I am sorry, this will be solved within five days, but if it is ok by you I will spend an extra two minutes to see if I can fix it in four days?
• No we do not have Coca Cola!
• We do have Pepsi if that is ok by you?

I bet that you know by these examples why NO is a NO NO!

Have I failed in providing great customer care lately?
I have had two customers lately that I decided would get the very best of me. I worked extra hard, found all the problems, forged an excellent e-mail response with a great overview of the problems and a financial superb plan with compensation and refunds. I even managed to give the largest refund possible in this matter. Thinking the customer will thank me now – this is GREAT customer care I thought. I have been haggling for four days on one case and for three days on the other. I gave it all, what went wrong? Well I thought I knew what the customer would experience as great customer care. Failing to know that customer might want to haggle. They might want the little extra. I had nothing more to offer. I offered it all at once. But the customer did not know that. And this is one of the most challenging moments in great customer care. You have done your very best, and still it is not good enough. I personally believe that we should do our best all the time, but the few incidents these last days might change my mind. But I should not hold back either, maybe it is my communication skills that is not good enough? I have been thinking a lot about this and have found out that customers hate being treated according to company policies or according to a contract. But I can use it in communication to create the right expectations. What about: I have done my very best sir, according to company policies and your contract this qualifies to a $100 refund, but in this particular case I feel I need to bend the rules a bit and offer you $150 in refund. (Your limit is $200) – Either the customer is happy or he wants more. If he wants more: I am not allowed to break the company policy so I need to check with my supervisor. Please hold the line for a moment. (Get a glass of water and get back) Sir I am happy to say I managed to get it up to $200. If the customer is still unhappy – respond: I understand sir, but this is my final offer. I think it is sad to not give it my best at the first shot, but I think it might be a tactical and smarter move?

Unreasonable people
A certain % of all people in the world are unreasonable, and you will meet customers that you can not in any possible way make happy. This tactics won’t work on them. It will work on normal people that expect a little extra. This will give you more happy customers. What do you do with the few that just never seem to agree? Get them to join the competition and let them spend time arguing with them. It is a win win situation for you.

I am still not sure if my thoughts provided here are any good but my biggest challenge after years in customer care is to solve the problems where customers disagree with my solution and we can’t seem to possible agree, resulting in the customer being unhappy. Am I the problem? Is the customer unreasonable? How can I get the “unreasonable” customer to see that their demands cannot possible be met, and still retain a happy customer? I would love to get your opinion on this topic

Online Networking

I have been lucky enough to experience an “a-ha moment” lately. I did know it from before, but I have not been aware enough to put the knowledge into good use.
A while back I joined David Zinger’s Online community; The Employee Engagement Network. All I did was to register and create a profile. I was hoping that it would create more readers to my blog. But I was wrong, deadly wrong, until I had an eye-opening dialogue with Craig Althof about online networking. He said:”The more I think about it, the more participation / contribution on the EEN and other forums is a classic manifestation of engagement. People must feel motivated to contribute, which involves setting aside a portion of their scarce discretionary time. They must put forth extra effort, but must also get something out of the effort—personal satisfaction.” – A valuable lesson suddenly landed in my lap. In order to get something out of a network, you need to contribute and participate, It makes logic sense.

500 Baseball Cards or 5 Friends for Life?
“There are a lot of joiners who collect network and group affiliations and “personal” connections like they were cheap baseball cards” – Craig Althof. This is also an interesting view. The size of your network is not important at all. So why do you want to network in the first place? This is a question that you need to answer, what are you looking for? What can you do for them? And what people do you need to interact with and why? If you can define this you can be more specific when looking for online buddies. I for one would love to find, fellow leaders with passion for writing, a leadership mentor or other call center managers.

1. Join an Online Network Where You are Most Likely to Meet Peers
   Spend some time to search for your favorite network. You do not need to be in ten different networks, as it would be impossible to be equally engaged in all of them. You might ask around if someone knows of any specific network where you can find matching interests with a group of people.
2. Read the ContributionFrom Others and Engage
   Start by reading what other people are writing, if you find someone with similar interests you might find your first friend. Or you can posts your interests in the “Here I am” – post. A lot of networks have designated areas where you can introduce yourself. Why not put the poster up right away.
3. Do Not Go Maniac Friending Everybody
   Yes I am guilty as charged, this is one of the mistakes I have done so far, but it stops here. In every network there is someone that adds everybody to their friend list, most likely because they think it will drive traffic to their blog or web service. I thought people would be curious about who is this bugger, friending me for no reason at all. Resulting in them visiting my blog to fall in love with my amazing content. Well here is the stone cold fact: This method does not work! A while back the numbers of visitors became unimportant anyway. I would rather write for five people that get something out of my writing and give me feedback, then to write for 1000 people marking my e-mail as spam.
4. You Can Just Read
   There is no rule stating the obligation to contribute with writing. You might learn a lot from a many great ongoing discussions. You do not need to write if you do not feel that you want to or have anything to contribute with. But sure it is a great benefit to write for a bunch of other reasons, not needed to be mentioned here.
5. Greet Your Friends
   I got a personal note from my first interacting friend on The Employee Engagement Network, and it made me smile. I felt that I was accepted for real. You should also great your friends. Maybe it is a good idea to create a two way interview, to get to know each other.

So to fully enjoy an online community or network, you need to participate. You need to step forward beyond just adding a friend. Start caring about the person and the people. Create friendship and dialogue. Engage and interact and you will be spending many good quality moments in front of your computer, and even in real life.

A special thanks to Craig Althof for an interesting discussion – Here is Craig’s blog.
And also a special thank you to David Zinger for the creation of the Employee Engagement Network.

Also read this:
- Phil Gerbyshak’s 10 commandments

Home of the wise ant © Frode Heimen

I went to the ant today or actually for a day of in the forest. Relaxing and getting out into nature is something all people should do once in a while.

But I did sit down to study an ant working hard at the ground. It was pulling a small stone ten times her size. It did almost not move the stone at all, but it moved slowly. I was wondering what purpose it had. I was wondering how long it would keep working and if it would come back the next day and continue moving this small stone all the way back home?

Hardworking Small Ants
My first thought when thinking about ants is “hardworking”. So if I should learn from the ant, I must work hard. The ants seem to be working all the time. But how would I tell if the ant actually is playing? Is it having fun?

Focused – One Task at the Time
The ant with the stone would not stop moving this stone. It kept going and did not give up. I was wondering if it would quit and search for a smaller stone or maybe for something else. But no, I followed this one ant for a long time and it kept on pulling the stone. I am sure that the ant will make it sooner or later, just because she focuses on this only task. I learn from the ant to be focused, and to handle one and one task in order.

Teamwork Makes Stuff Move
I did not see this today, but I have seen several ants before working on moving one object. The fabulous buildings they provide as well are a great result of teamwork. There seems to be different teams for different tasks. Maybe if the team focuses on its strengths it will bring in more success?

Participate in the Society
These little ants work together for the benefit of the society, creating and building a strong community for themselves. Maybe this is telling me to engage in community work or local politics?

Close the Door if it’s Raining
The ants have small leaves laying next to its entrances, if it starts raining a door ant will move the leaf to cover the entrance, leaving the rain out of the tunnels.

There might be something to learn from the ant about work ethics, and about work ethics only. There is a work life balance and it is important to relax and recover as well. I just spent the day in the forest with my wife and kids enjoying the sun, the warm weather and a nice cup of coffee. On the other hand I do not know what the ant is doing when the sun sets; maybe it is all fun and games, getting ready for tomorrow?
A last lesson to learn from ants is to watch out for joggers, they move fast and can hurt you!

Have a nice and wise day!