How to Gain Big CX Insights from Small Details

My wife, Sally, and I really enjoy wine. 

It's fun to explore new wineries and share both bottles and experiences with friends. So we were a little excited when I found a winery in Napa Valley that was looking for "investors."

The deal was enticing. 

In exchange for investing a small amount of money into the winery, you would receive an estimated 6 percent annual return plus a few bonus perks such as free wine, wine discounts, and even business cards. The business cards were a huge perk since many Napa wineries offer benefits such as free tastings to people affiliated with the wine industry.

Naturally, we had two big questions before we invested.

1. Was the wine any good?

2. How was the customer experience?

To test both, I placed an order for two bottles. The process revealed a lot of clues about how the winery was managed.

Here's how that one experience told Sally and I all we needed to know.

The Purchase Experience

Texas was a key part of the winery's sales strategy. The state represents a growing market with a lot of wine enthusiasts, but has less competition than California. 

So I went to the websites of two of Texas's biggest wine retailers, Total Wine and Spec's, and searched for the wine. Total Wine was sold out while Spec's didn't have anything from the winery listed.

A lack of inventory can easily drive customers to a competitor. You can't sell what you don't have.

So I went back to the winery's website and tried to place an order. The online store was not integrated into the website, and it took a bit of navigating to place my order. The order confirmation email arrived quickly, but did not confirm an expected delivery date.

Warning signs:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

Fulfillment Time

Amazon is the product delivery benchmark for many of us. You can get purchases delivered the next day, sometimes even the same day, seven days a week.

The wine industry is a little different. Most smaller wineries typically ship purchases twice per week. Shipping time from Napa to my home in San Diego is about two days, so I expected delivery to take up to a week.

Two weeks went by and the wine had not arrived. I also had not heard from the winery.

List of warning signs so far:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

• Long delivery time

• Lack of proactive delivery notices

Transactional Service

I sent a follow-up email to the company to check the status of my order. This could be a good thing in a way, since it would be an opportunity to try out the winery's customer service.

The CFO, Kevin, quickly responded:

My first question was, "Why is the CFO answering customer service email?" This might not be too unusual in a small winery, but it didn't make much sense in a winery that was looking to woo investors so it could grow into a powerhouse.

The other red flag was Kevin promised that my wine would ship the next day. Why not today? It seemed my order hadn't been a big priority until I raised an issue.

The warning signs list grows:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

• Long delivery time

• Lack of proactive delivery notices

• The CFO is answering customer service emails

• Website orders aren't a priority

Poor Leadership

The warning signs had added up, so it was time to cut bait on this investment idea. I replied to Kevin and put my cards on the table, explaining that I had ordered the wine as a trial run while considering an investment.

That investment clearly wasn't going to happen, so I asked him to cancel my order. He quickly responded again:

Kevin inexplicably copied two other people on the email, Brandon and Kathleen. I have no idea who they are, though presumably they were employees tasked with stopping my shipment and issuing a refund.

Here's a guess, based on my experience working with executives like this. Copying those people on the email was Kevin's way of giving them an assignment. It's both inappropriate (why include the customer?) and potentially unclear to the employees. 

Ten days passed and no refund. I emailed again to ask about the status. Kevin quickly replied to Brandon, copying me.

Whoa! Three problems here:

• Who is Brandon?

• Why is Kevin emailing him rather than replying to me?

• It's Wednesday. Why will it take the CFO until Friday to process my refund?!

It was really further evidence of Kevin's poor leadership. He may have been frustrated with Brandon (who was copied on the last email) for not issuing the refund earlier. Or perhaps he thought he was being responsive by showing me that he had tasked this duty to Brandon. 

None of that mattered. The CFO should have been able to issue a refund immediately.

The big list of warning signs:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

• Long delivery time

• Lack of proactive delivery notices

• The CFO is answering customer service emails

• Orders aren't a priority

• Poor executive leadership

Epilogue

Friday came and went with no refund. It had now been 30 days since I had placed more order and more than two weeks since Kevin promised a refund "ASAP."

I wound up disputing the charge with my credit card company since Kevin, Brandon, or whoever else was working there couldn't seem to get it done. Which tells me the winery may have some cashflow issues in addition to it's many other dysfunctions. 

Sally and I were disappointed this investment idea didn't work out, but one test order told us this winery was probably going to struggle. You can learn a lot about a business when you view it from a customer's perspective.

Why Channel Switching Is a Good Thing

Channel switching gets a bad rap in customer service.

If you are not familiar with the term, it refers to situations where a customer starts an interaction with a company in one channel and the interaction moves to another channel.

The customer sometimes initiates this. For instance, a customer might email a company with a question and then call a day later when she does not get a response.

At other times, companies cause the channel switch. The classic example happens when a customer tweets at a company and the company replies saying, "Can you email your information to service@acme.com and we'll look into it?"

Both of these examples seem bad, and they are. But there are definitely times when channel switching is terrific. 

A Good Channel Switching Example

I've become a fan of the ride sharing app, Lyft. 

Using Lyft requires a lot of channel switching, though I'd argue it enhances the experience. Here's an example from a recent business trip where I used Lyft to get from a client's office to the airport:

1. App: I booked a ride on Lyft using the app and then tracked my driver.

2. Text: Lyft texted to inform me my driver, Benjamin, was near.

3. In-Person: This is the ride itself. Keep in mind in-person is a channel. 

4. App: I used the app to give Benjamin a rating and a tip after I arrived.

This one experience used three channels (app, text, and in-person) and switched channels three times. What made it terrific was every channel switch was seamless and felt natural. 

The truth is we often seamlessly switch channels when interacting with companies. 

You might use OpenTable to book a restaurant reservation and then visit the restaurant in-person to dine. Or you might call a customer service department for assistance and the rep sends you a helpful follow-up email.

You probably don't give channel switching a second thought when it works well. 

Where Channel Switching Goes Wrong

Companies like Lyft succeed because they make channel switching seamless and natural. Many companies do not.

I recently decided to close an account with a local credit union. You would have thought I was requesting the most unusual transaction in history. Here's that experience:

1. Website: searched for instructions or necessary forms (couldn't find any).

2. Phone: Called for assistance. Was told to visit a branch.

3. In-Person: Visited the branch to close the account. Was told it would take a day to process.

4. Phone: Employee from branch made a follow-up call to verify account closed.

Like my Lyft experience, this credit union experience featured three channels (website, phone, and in-person) and three channel switches.

It was not a good experience because the channel switches felt forced and unnatural. It still doesn't make sense why I couldn't close my account online, given I could do just about everything else on the credit union's website.

The one positive part of the experience was the branch employee who made a follow-up call. She was technically switching channels, but that part was fine because it felt like a continuation of the conversation.

And that's the key. Good channel switching is seamless and natural. Bad channel switching just feels like the company doesn't have its act together.

Master the Moments of Truth

Jeannie Walters is the CEO of 360Connext. She's an expert in identifying and optimizing key moments in a customer's journey.

Walters suggests companies should think about a customer's real life rather than design touch points around a process. She gives a great example from retail clothing stores.

"Nordstrom and other retailers determined how customers like to order clothes online, but wanted the choice to return or exchange them at a store. Once these retailers saw the need for seamless channel switching, they were able to make returning via any channel easier. Now customers have the choice of returning by sending back with a pre-paid label, going to a store, or even calling a special phone line."

You can do something similar. 

• Experience your products or service like a customer would.

• Contact your customer service department, just like a customer might. 

• Talk to real customers and gather their feedback.

The goal is to find pinch points that harm the experience and find a way to make them seamless and natural for your customers.

Customer Experience Pain Point: Updating a Credit Card Expiration Date

Your credit or debit card expires every few years. When it does, one of the required chores is updating all the accounts that card is linked to for automatic payments.

This recently happened to me. What's fascinating is how widely this experience varies from company to company. No company did it perfectly, though some (Netflix) handled it much, much better than others.

You'd think companies would make it easier for us to pay them. Instead, updating a credit card expiration date often generates unnecessary contacts and customer frustration. 

Here are a few examples:

Winner: Netflix

I logged into my Netflix account and discovered my credit card was already updated.

How did Netflix pull off this magic? They subscribe to a credit card updater service that handled it automatically. This saved me some effort and ensured Netflix would continue to get paid.

The only thing that would have made it better was a proactive notification. Netflix would have saved me the trouble of logging into the billing section of my account by emailing a message that told me my new credit card expiration date was already on file. 

Average Experience

Most companies were fairly straightforward. Login, find the billing section of my account, and enter the new credit card expiration date. 

It took less than one minute on average from start to finish for each company. That's not too bad though Netflix clearly does it better.

My worry for these companies is what happens when they have customers who aren't as proactive as I am? Chances are there are a lot of service interruptions that generate unnecessary customer friction. Those service interruptions also slow down the company's cash flow and add to the cost of servicing each account.

Worst Experience

The cable company won this one. Again. (I've had a challenge updating my credit card expiration date in the past.)

The company did one thing well. It mailed a proactive notice reminding me my card was about to expire. That was smart business.

The difficulty occurred when I tried to make this update online. I couldn't. I tried several times over a few hours and repeatedly got this message:

Poor grammar aside, a broken self-service process is bound to generate unnecessary contacts. It was time to check this chore off my list, so I opted for live chat.

The chat session took a full ten minutes to complete. (Yes, I'm the nerd who times these things.) Most of that was lag time because the agent was chatting with two other customers concurrently and I had to wait for her responses. 

Ironically, my cable company recently sent a promotion for its home security service. The unnecessary friction required to update an expiring credit card is enough to convince me the home security service would not be a good experience.

Take Action

Does your company keep customer credit or debit cards on file for automatic billing?

If so, audit your process. Follow your customer's journey to see how easy (or difficult the process is). Do some extra research when an account is suspended for nonpayment to find out whether the issue could have been prevented.

The way I see it, there are three best practices for companies to follow.

1. Subscribe to an updater service so card information gets updated automatically.

2. Send out proactive notifications to give customers the peace of mind that their account is up-to-date.

3. Make it very easy for customers to update payment information on their own.

The result will be happier customers and fewer missed payments!

Lessons From The Overlook: Experience Your Customers' Experience

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a monthly update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

Guest experience was initially a blind spot at The Overlook.

When we bought the property last October, our property manager did a property walk-through with us and gave her assessment. That was helpful, but we didn't have a lot of data other than that.

How were we going to find out what our guests liked or disliked? Or how we could make their stay align with our customer service vision, Welcome to your mountain community retreat?

Most people would default to a guest survey. We did that (through our property manager), but we also used two techniques that are arguably more powerful in this situation: experience and observation.

Here's what we did and how you can use these concepts, too.

Experience Your Product or Service

The first thing we did when we bought The Overlook was spend a weekend.

The house was already a vacation rental and it was sold turnkey, which meant it came fully furnished. What we didn't know was whether those furnishings were adequate.

You can learn a lot when you experience your product or service the way a customer would. For example, it might be easy to miss a few burned out lightbulbs if you weren't relaxing at the dining table underneath your faux-antler chandelier.

So we tried to experience everything a guest would experience. We slept in each bedroom, used each bathroom, cooked in the kitchen, watched TV, and used the internet. We even brought our dog to see how comfortable she would be.

This experience allowed us to experience The Overlook the way a guest would experience it. We might not represent every guest, but we could still use empathetic insight to imagine what guests might like and what they probably wouldn't.

Then we made a list of everything we felt was sub-par and made improvements. We went back a few times over the next several weeks to make updates and complete some minor repairs. 

A few weeks later, we returned once again. This time we booked our stay through our property manager's website. We wanted to experience the entire reservation process and then see what it was like when The Overlook was prepped for guests.

It's amazing how many small things you can discover this way. For example, we noticed we often had to find creative ways to store leftovers after cooking a meal. We figured our guests would feel the same way, so we added some extra tupperware to the kitchen.

Lesson Learned: Try mystery shopping your own business so you can experience a product or service the way a customer would. You might notice opportunities for improvement from a whole new perspective.

Observe How Customers Use Your Product or Service

Another exercise we did was to visit The Overlook several times immediately after guests checked out.

Our timing was critical because our property manager inspects the property after each stay and then sends a cleaning crew in to clean the house so it's ready for the next guests.

Our goal was to see the cabin before the inspection. We wanted to see it exactly our our guests left it. In particular, we looked for four things:

• What was dirty?

• What was moved?

• What was damaged?

• What was missing?

This exercise gave us insight into how our guests used the cabin. Here are some examples:

We got clues about how guests used the kitchen by what was dirty and what had been moved from it's original location. This helped us better organize and stock the kitchen.

One particular vase was always moved from its original location. This signaled to us that it was in our guests' way. They were likely moving it to make more room for their stuff, so we just removed it completely.

Plates and glasses sometimes get damaged, too. Some guests will notify our property manager, but other guests will try to hide the damaged dish in a cupboard or fail to mention a broken glass. Looking for those items allows us to replace them.

Lesson Learned: Observe how your guests use your product or service. You'll almost certainly gain insight that you'd never get from a survey.

Conclusion

It's always good to have data from multiple sources. We look at our guest survey data and combine it with our experience and observation data. 

For instance, our guest observations tell us that the typical guest uses 75-100% of the bath towels. That's not surprising since we provide eight sets of towels, our max capacity is eight, and we tend to get a lot of groups that size.

Our survey revealed that guests would like even more towels because they often shower after a sweaty hike and then use the hot tub later in the evening. Using the same towel more than once in a day get leave it feeling a bit soggy.

We're working on that one now.

Why We Need Less Marketing And More Customer Experience

Like most pet owners, I go out of my way to care for my dog.

She's a ten-year-old mutt that I've had since she was a puppy. She's a big girl, weighing just under 80 pounds. This means I make regular visits to the pet store to buy a lot of food, treats, and poop bags. I can only imagine how much I've spent over her lifetime.

There's a pet store that's just five minutes away from my house. I don't go there anymore because it offered a consistently poor experience. 

It wasn't just the customer service that was poor. It was the entire experience. Annette Franz has this handy definition of customer experience on her blog:

(a) the sum of all the interactions that a customer has with a company over the course of the relationship lifecycle and (b) the customer's feelings, emotions, and perceptions of the brand over the course of those interactions.

Someone in marketing had a new bright idea every week. They'd change the layout so frequently that each visit felt like walking through a maze. They frequently got rid of popular products because they thought they could sell a similar product under their private label for a better margin.

Now, I drive to another pet store that's fifteen minutes from my home. I literally pass the old store on my way there. The new store had a much better experience.

At least it did until Tuesday.

I went in for three items. This store usually gives you the option to get your receipt via email. I like that. It's one less piece of paper to clutter my pocket before I eventually throw it away. 

Not Tuesday. On Tuesday, the only receipt option was paper:

This monstrous receipt was for three items. It's 58.5 inches long in case you're wondering - nearly five feet tall.

Someone in marketing is responsible for this. They took away the convenient email option and replaced it with a file-clogging wad of coupons and promotions. I'm not interested in any of them. 

This isn't a customer service problem. The friendly cashier made the best of the situation when the receipt started printing and just kept going and going. We joked about it. I think she was a little embarrassed. She apologized for the hassle.

I'm sure a marketer thought this was a great idea. You can just imagine one of those creative sessions. Someone suddenly gets a devilish look in their eye and said, "What if... nah. It's too outlandish."

Someone else chimed in and said, "C'mon, Craig. We're brainstorming here! There are no bad ideas! What are you thinking?"

So Craig screwed up the courage to spit it out. "What if we gave every customer a giant receipt full of coupons? It could be like five feet long. It would be so outrageous that customers would think they were getting punked!!"

Actually, Craig, there are bad ideas.

No customer experience professional would have gone for this. One look at the awkward interaction between customer and cashier while the receipt printer spewed out coupons like a broken skee ball machine and they would have realized it was a crummy idea.

Those coupons might earn the pet store a few extra bucks. The marketers will take credit for that. It might also cost them a few customers. Whose fault will that be?

Five Simple Rules of Customer Experience

You want your customer to have a great experience.

That’s a given. So, how do you make that happen? And, what the heck is customer experience anyway?

Here’s a great definition Annette Franz posted on her CX Journey blog:

Customer experience is the sum of all the interactions a customer has with a company over the course of the relationship lifecycle.

As Franz explains, customer experience is more than just one interaction. It's all the interactions. And, what's most important is how the customer feels about the company over the course of those interactions.

Giving customers a consistently great experience can be difficult. 

There are traps along the way. Most of them are beyond your frontline employees’ control. In his book, Strategic Customer Service, John Goodman identified the top three causes of service failures:

1. Defective products, systems, or processes: 50 - 60%
2. Customer errors or unreasonable expectations: 20 - 30%
3. Employee mistakes or bad attitudes: 20 - 30%

Customer service training can help, but it won’t fix systemic problems or customer errors. Something else is needed.

A process called customer journey mapping allows you to look at customer experience holistically, through the eyes of the customer. The only drawback here is the process can take time.

A shortcut would be handy.

If you’re pressed for time, you can start by focusing on these five simple rules of outstanding customer experience.

Rule #1: Keep Your Promises

Let’s forget the wow factor for just a moment. Companies have a tough enough time keeping their basic promises.

A basic promise is the fundamental customer expectation that you get what you pay for.

Imagine you check into a budget hotel. They promise few frills, but they do offer a clean and comfortable room, free breakfast, and free wifi all for a low rate. 

You’d be wrong to expect luxury linens or a five star restaurant at this hotel. But, you’d be right to be disappointed if your room was in poor condition like the one in this video:

There’s no excuse for this. Get religion about avoiding broken promises and you’ll eliminate most of your poor experiences.

Rule #2: Make It Snappy

Customers hate to wait.

Here are just a few examples:

• Consumers now expect businesses to respond to email in just one hour.
• Waiting is the #1 reason people complain on Twitter.
• Customers notoriously perceive they’ve waited longer than they actually have.

Can you really blame them?

You can enhance your customers’ experience if you can reduce the time they spend waiting for your company to get things done. 

Consider these examples. Which would you rather experience?

• A repair technician arriving sometime in a four hour window or at a precise time?
• An online order arriving in five days or two days?
• A one day response to a credit application or an instant notification?

If you can shorten wait times, you’ll likely improve customer experience.

Rule #3: Make a Great First Impression

First impressions have an enormous impact on what customers remember about their experience.

Beware! The first impression doesn’t necessarily occur when a customer comes into contact with one of your employees. 

In many cases, it happens much sooner. Here are just a few ways a first impression can go wrong before your employees even get a chance to help:

• Struggling to find parking before visiting your store.
• Getting aggravated by a phone menu before reaching a live person.
• Searching your website in vain for the answer to a simple question.

The list goes on. 

You can avoid a lot of customer headaches if you identify the likely first impression in your customer’s journey and make sure it’s a good one.

Rule #4: Make a Great Last Impression

The last step in your customer’s journey is another critical moment.

Once again, it’s not necessarily the last contact your customer has with an employee. This makes it essential to identify where a customer’s journey is most likely to end. That ending should be a happy one.

Here are a few examples of how things go wrong:

• A helpful CSR promises to fix a billing error (great!), but the error is still there when the customer receives their next bill (fail).
• A hotel guest has a wonderful experience (great!) until a valet attendant loses their rental car key and causes them to miss their flight (fail).
• A customer buys a dress for a special event (great!) but notices the dress is torn as she is getting ready for her event (fail).

A failure at the end of the journey becomes the story your customer tells. But, here’s the good news:

Even if a problem happens somewhere else along the journey, you can create a positive experience if the journey ends on a high note.

That makes it critical to detect and solve problems before it’s too late. 

Many people instinctively think to do a survey, but customers are getting tired of surveys. Ironically, the survey itself could create a poor last impression.

The good news is I can think of at least five ways to collect customer feedback without using a survey. Pay particular attention to #5 - ask customers directly. 

Rule #5: Do One Thing Really, Really Well

Most of our experiences as customers are utterly forgettable.

That's okay! You don’t need every moment in your customer’s experience to be memorable. You just need one.

Customers tend to remember their peak experience more than anything else. The peak is defined as the part of the experience that’s the biggest difference from the norm.

The peak could be good or bad. A bad peak can be difficult to recover from. A good peak can etch a feeling of goodwill into your customer’s memory.

So, how do you create a good peak?

In their book, Uncommon Service, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss argue that companies must sacrifice excellence in some areas to be outstanding in others.

Here are just a few examples:

• In-N-Out Burger provides awesome service and terrific food. The trade-off is you can expect to wait twenty minutes in the drive-through line for a cooked fresh to order meal.

• Alaska Airlines provides great service in comfortable planes for a low price. The trade-off is they typically fly to underserved markets, so you can’t fly them everywhere you go.

• Amazon offers great prices and fast delivery. The trade-off is it can be hard to get a wealth of product information on many items (with the exception of books).

The key is these companies sacrifice something that’s less important to customers in favor of doing something great that customers will really notice.

If you can find one way to be awesome, you’ll probably create a memorable experience for your customers.

Conclusion

Mapping your customers’ journey is ultimately a good idea.

Until you do, focus on these five simple rules and you’ll stand a great chance of creating an outstanding experience for the people you serve.

How to get better customer service this holiday season

Shopping during the holidays can be a fun and festive time, but we’ve all experienced our share of service failures too. Huge crowds and exhausted employees can conspire to make shopping miserable if we're not prepared.

That’s why I reached out to some of my favorite customer service experts to ask them, “What can customers do to get better service during the holidays?”

Here are their terrific tips:

Celebrate!

“While we're busy with the hustle and bustle of the holidays, we forget that those individuals we're needing service from are at work...and it's stressful, even more during the busy holiday time. Take time to celebrate with them, wish them a happy holiday. Remembering that they're a human being too with their own holiday plans helps bring humanity and personality back into the employee/customer relationship.”

- Flavio Martins. Flavio is on a mission to end bad service and writes about it on his blog, The Customer Service Manager.

Don’t Be a Jerk

“The customer has almost as much to do with the success of the interaction as the worker does. Manners, energy, gratitude, patience, mutual respect, and common courtesy are all critical. Just be a good person. Please don't undermine your own service experience by being a jerk.”

- Patrick Maguire. Patrick’s outstanding I’m Your Server, Not Your Servant blog discusses customer service issues from the perspective of service industry workers.

Dress Up

“People still judge a book by its cover. Just because you can wear jeans down around your butt, a muffin top and crocs doesn't mean they'll respect you in the morning – or in the store. Those who spend a bit of time to dress for the occasion receive elevated service.”

- Bob Phibbs. Bob writes an excellent blog on retail sales, Bob Phibbs Retail Sales Blog, and is the author of several books including The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business.

Empathize

“Retailers hire a significant number of part-time seasonal staff to meet the demands of the holiday shopping season. Many of these employees are working multiple jobs and/or going to school on top of having to prepare for the holidays. To receive better service during the bustling holiday season, heed the advice of the Greek philosopher, Plato: ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’”

- Steve Curtin. Steve’s customer service blog has a great collection of customer service stories that all illustrate important lessons.

Touch the Heart

“If you don't get a great rep, do what I teach the best to do -- touch the heart. A simple question, "how are you surviving the crunch today?" breaks through their self-focused attitude to the heart of customer service.”

- Kate Nasser. Kate’s Smart SenseAbilities(TM) blog addresses the explicit and subtle moves that make customer service consistently great. She is also featured in the DVD, Customer Service USA - The Regional Differences That Make a Difference.

Use Names

“Most service providers feel more connected to you if you refer to them by name. If a provider's name isn’t volunteered, consider asking for it. Make this into a friendly exchange: ask in a sociable way, and also offer your name.”

- Micah Solomon. Micah Solomon is a professional business keynote speaker and the bestselling author of two bestselling business books. His website is http://www.micahsolomon.com and his blog is College of the Customer, http://www.micahsolomon.com/blog.

Compliment Outstanding Service

“Let them know that you believe that outstanding customer service is rare these days and that you really appreciated their efforts. And with leaving that associate on Cloud Nine, you have certainly guaranteed that the next customer will most certainly receive the same exceptional service.”

- Bill Quiseng. Bill is the Resort Manager for Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club and writes about customer service on his blog, Deliver the World’s Best Customer Experience. 

Give Companies the Opportunity to Solve Problems

“During the holiday season, companies are understaffed and employees are highly stressed. Mistakes will be made, and your holiday season will be that much easier if you allow companies a chance to make good when they drop the ball. Give companies a chance to fix problems before taking away your business or sending that angry tweet.”

- Adam Toporek. Check out Adam’s Customers That Stick blog where you can also receive a free e-book called 7 Secret Customer Service Techniques Every Expert Knows!

Treat People the Way You and They Want to Be Treated

“If you want better service practice two rules:

The Golden Rule – You grew up learning this one. Treat people the way you would want to be treated, which is with respect, dignity and patience.

The Platinum Rule – My friend Dr. Tony Alessandra came up with this one, and it is twist on the Golden Rule, which is to treat people the way they want to be treated. Show empathy.”

- Shep Hyken. Shep is the best-selling author of the Amazement Revolution, and also writes a very insightful customer service blog.

Be Patient

“Crowds, loud working conditions, too much food, too over committed, too many tasks pulling you in too many directions.  Then you have to go to work and smile, be patient and provide excellent service!  When you are a customer, be kind and empathize with your service provider - you know how they feel.  Be part of making someones day better, not worse.”

Wendi Brick. Wendi's company, Customer Service Advantage, Inc., specializes in helping government agencies improve service. She is also the author of The Science of Service: Six Essential Elements for Creating a Culture of Service in the Public Sector. 

Do your homework. Be informed.

“Educated customers make better customers. There are so many tools and resources at our fingertips to do price comparisons, find the best deals, read product reviews, locate products and get updates on availability, read about shipping policies and deadlines, and learn about return and exchange policies.”

- Annette Franz. Annette writes the CX Journey blog  and leads Southern California networking events for the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA). 

Send Checks

“One approach that guarantees a headache-free customer service holiday season is to avoid customer service representatives altogether. Checks are never returned or exchanged. No customer service issues involved … unless it bounces. If you're prone to bouncing checks, try money orders.”

- Write The Company. The Write the Company blog features witty customer service correspondence with real companies. Read between the lines and you’ll be reminded not to take yourself too seriously.

Wine Tasting in Napa Valley - It's All About the Experience

My wife, Sally, and I recently made our annual trip to Napa Valley to do some wine tasting and stock up on wine. It dawned on me that we go back every year for the wine but also the experiences. There really is a lot to learn about service from these wineries! So, here's a quick summary of where we go, why we go, and what we can learn from it all.

Lodging

There are not a lot of major chain hotels in the Napa Valley area, so the way to go is a nice inn or B&B. We enjoy staying at the Napa River Inn in Napa. They've created a wonderful experience for their guests. A highlight is breakfast at the "Sweetie Pies" bakery, which is included in the room rate. They have two large community tables where you can often catch a hot tip from one of the locals that frequent the shop.

Wineries
We tend to stick with the smaller wineries unless we reserve a tour since you get a more intimate experience (and often better wine). The taste of wine is so subjective, so I'll refrain from commenting on quality (they were all good in their own right) but here are a few highlights of the experience.

Sterling. You get there via a gondola ride up the hillside to the winery and tasting room. The views of Napa Valley are awesome from this suspended cable car! Sally and I took a tour this time and had a wonderfully insightful and informative guide, Robert. Lessons learned: a great environment needs to be matched by great people!

Dutch Henry. This is about as informal as it gets. We did our tasting in a small office because they were bottling wine in their normal tasting venue, their barrel room. The lady doing our tasting was a lot of fun and drank wine along with us. Now that's being committed to your product! Lessons learned: breaking the ice and being less formal often creates great service situations and can overcome a lot of other deficiencies.

Cuivaison. It's a well-known secret that most wineries will pour wines not on their tasting list if you show an appropriate level of interest. The guy serving us did a great job of asking questions and learning our preferences, and he poured several "off the list" wines for us to try. (It worked quite well - we bought several!) Lessons learned: Listen to your customers before proposing a product or service! You'll sell more and they'll be even happier!

Frog's Leap. This winery is appointment-only, but they have a very cool tour. Mindy, our guide, took us through their gardens and wine making operation and told some interesting stories along the way. For example, the founders lived on an old frog farm and "liberated" the grapes for their first wine from Stag's Leap, thus the name of the winery. Lessons learned: Involving your customers in your story can help build passion and a deeper sense of brand-awareness.

PlumpJack. No time for tasting here, just a quick stop to buy a bottle of one of our favorite Cabernet Sauvignons. They were doing tastings for $10, but we just asked for a splash of the wine we bought, which we were offered on the house. A woman standing next to us noticed our bottle of wine had a screw cap and that launched also sorts of questions that probably deepened her experience too. Lessons learned: It pays to make your customers feel like a VIP, even if they only bring a small amount of business. And, it never hurts to have something unusual about your product or service that is a conversation starter.

Peju Province Winery. Most wineries have you saunter up to the tasting counter like you are in a bar, but Peju does it a bit differently. A greeter welcomes you in a lobby/gift shop area and asks you to wait a few minutes for the next tasting. They gathered about eight of us and led us to our own wine counter where a very knowledgeable and friendly gentleman led us through our tasting. We all received more attention, had a chance to ask more questions, and likely bought more wine than if we had to elbow our way in to get a tasting. Lessons learned: It costs more to have extra staff, but giving your customers the attention they deserve should pay off handsomely through higher average order values.

Hess Collection. This winery is another big producer, but they're off the beaten path, so they don't get extremely crowded. The lady who helped us was very friendly and knew a lot about their wine. She shared her knowledge, such as having us sample a few different wines side by side so we could taste the difference. That helped make it a very unique experience. Lessons learned: Make sure your people are able to educate customers on your products or services. This enhances your customers' understanding of what they're buying and can deepen their connection to your brand.