Why customer service isn't always obvious

The video below contains a simple observation exercise. I encourage you to watch the short video before reading the rest of this post (it's less than 90 seconds long).

What did you notice?

Researchers Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons found that only 50% of people notice the gorilla in the video the first time they watch it. Why? A strange phenomenon called inattentional blindness where our focus on one thing causes us to miss something that would otherwise be obvious.

The people who do see the gorilla usually lose count of the passes.

I recently saw an example of this first hand when dining at one of my favorite local restaurants with my wife and her parents. The restaurant was very crowded so the only open table was tucked into a corner in the back of the restaurant. Unfortunately, we hardly saw our server after she took our orders. Our water glasses sat empty, we finished our meals before we had a chance to order a few cocktails, and she took a long time to bring our check. From our perspective, it was obvious that she should have paid more attention to us.

So, what could have gotten in the way? I observed a few things that may have caused her to unintentionally neglect our table.

• Our table was tucked away behind a wall and out of sight from the rest of her section.

• A large group was seated in her section just after we arrived and it was quite a production to take their orders, bring them drinks, etc.

• Our server carried only one plate at a time in each hand, even when picking up dirty dishes, hinting at a lack of experience in restaurant service.

If you imagine we were out of sight on a busy evening with an inexperienced server who was trying to keep all her tables straight, you can understand why we might have been forgotten in the frenzy.

A great question to ask about your own employees is what might be distracting them from seeing obvious customer service opportunities?

Does tipping improve customer service?

The short answer is not really. The longer answer raises some interesting questions about customer service from tipped employees.

It is estimated that the impact of tipping on service quality is less than 2% in restaurants (Lynn, 2003). One of the main reasons is there are a lot of other factors that contribute to what customers tip.

Custom
In the United States, it’s customary to tip between 15% and 20% for restaurant service. This custom tends to bunch tips into this range.

Tips are based on the bill
Most people tip based on the total bill, which means you’ll tip more for the same meal if you order an expensive bottle of wine rather than iced tea, even if the service quality is the same.

Only exceptional service stands out
We only tend to notice truly outstanding or truly poor service. Unless our experience lands in one of those two categories, we’re likely to revert to our customary percentage.

These factors can also apply to other tipping situations such as shuttle drivers, valet parking attendants, and even your hair stylist. The tip is often determined by custom and/or the size of the bill unless you receive exceptionally outstanding or poor service.

Hidden dangers
Tipping can provide incentives for poor service if not carefully managed. Here are a few examples:

• Employees may reduce their service quality if they believe a customer will tip poorly.
• Employees may focus on behaviors that lead to tips at the expense of other tasks.
• Cooperation and teamwork may suffer if employees become too focused on earning their own tips.

So, get rid of tipping, right?
Not so fast! Instituting a no tipping policy is by no means a panacea for service quality. A San Diego restaurant called the Linkery received a lot of publicity for implementing a flat service charge in place of tips, but their current Yelp rating is 3 out of 5 stars. (Check out the Linkery’s explanation of their no tipping policy.)

Service is Service
The lesson I take away is that people who manage tipped employees should pay careful attention to customer service issues, just as they would if they managed employees who didn’t receive tips.

The customer service disconnect

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

- Mark Twain

The first time I saw that quote was in an angry email from the President of the small catalog company I had started working for three weeks prior. They were starting to grow and had hired me to help them improve training and employee performance. The company President took exception to a report I wrote that predicted the average order size would go down since the new catalog targeted a wider customer base with a slew of high volume, low priced items.

This turned out to be a tipping point for the company. The average order size did go down, but there were soon other signs that the President (and majority owner) was disconnected from his customers. He remained doggedly loyal to old suppliers even as quality and delivery problems led to mounting customer complaints. The company launched a new line of products that consumed precious resources without coming anywhere near the success of the original catalog. The company started losing loyal customers, ran into cash flow problems, and went out of business for good a few years later.

Unfortunately, this head in the sand approach to customers isn’t uncommon. A 2006 Bain & Company study found that 80% of companies surveyed felt they delivered superior customer service but the customers of only 8% of those companies agreed. It makes you wonder what the management teams at the other companies were thinking.

This disconnect isn’t confined to senior management. I have run a small experiment many times with companies and have received very consistent results. I ask a room full of customer service reps to rate the customer service they personally deliver on a scale of 1 – 5 with 5 being best. Next, I ask the reps to look around the room and assign a rating to the entire team. On average, the reps rate themselves a 4 while rating the team a 3. The math doesn’t add up but it does show that most of the reps believed they were better than their peers even without any objective basis for reaching this conclusion.

Possible Explanations
There are a range of explanations for this disconnect. It might be the company culture, the individual's ego, or perhaps a natural tendancy to ignore blind spots. Please leave a comment if you have an idea about the underlying causes. Better yet, how do companies solve it?

5 Ways to Help Employees Empathize More

Empathy is an amazing customer service skill that can solve a lot of problems, lead to enormous goodwill, and create customers for life. A popular story on the internet today details how a Southwest Airlines pilot held his plane so a late passenger was able to travel from Los Angeles to Colorado in time to see his grandson before he died. An understanding of what the grandfather was experiencing prompted the pilot to take extraordinary action. (Read the story here.)

Unfortunately, demonstrating empathy can be difficult for many customer service professionals, especially when the situation isn't quite so extreme.

A housekeeper in an upscale hotel may never have spent $200 to spend the night on a luxury hotel room.

A tech support rep may fix his own computer, so he has a hard time understanding why so many customers can't fix seemling simple issues.

A sales rep at an office supply store might not own a small business, so she can't related to the needs of the business owners she serves.

How can you help employees empathize?

There are simple techniques you can use to ensure your employees are better able to demonstrate empathy with your customers. Here are a few of my favorites.

#1 Hire people who have been there, done that. I love buying outdoor gear at REI because the people who work there are passionate about the gear they sell. When my wife, Sally, and I bought backpacking equipment a year ago, a sales associate who was an avid backpacker gave us all sorts of useful pointers. Compare this to a big box sporting goods store where the only 'pointer' you might get is the sales associate's finger pointing at an intimidating wall of backpacks.

#2 Help employees acquire customer experiences. If your employees aren't already customers, help them temporarily become one. For example, some hotels have associates spend the night as a guest to gain a new perspective. Another great one is a catalog company that gives its reps gift cards to other catalog companies so they can see what it's like to be an a customer. And, there's always the time-honored employee discount!

#3 Coach employees to empathize. Employees can develop a better sense of empathy through coaching. Start by having them identify why a customer might be upset in a particular situation. Next, ask the employee to think of a similar experience and how they felt. Finally, discuss ways they can provide assistance so the customer won't feel like they did.

#4 Conduct after action reviews. Empathy skills can take time and patience to develop. Try conducting an 'after action review' when an employee misses an opportunity to serve with empathy. This will help the employee identify alternative strategies that might yield a better result the next time they encounter a similar situation. An after action review also helps the employee focus on future performance rather than feeling upset at being blamed or scolded by the boss.

#5 Remove anti-empathy pressure. You'll naturally create more empathetic employees when you remove negative pressures that might convince them to act without concern for their customer. The Southwest Airlines pilot who held his plane for the grandparent risked upsetting the other passengers and possibly getting into trouble. However, Southwest Airlines quickly reinforced his actions by releasing a public statement that made it clear they were proud of their pilot's actions.

How else can you help your employees demonstrate empathy? Chime in a share your ideas!