Shaun Smith from “The Perfect Customer Experience” blog argues that “We can all avoid making this mistake [of not delivering a perfect customer experience]– treating customers as if they are all the same … or worse yet, treating them all as if they were you.” (See full post).

So I am asking myself what is the reason that an organization (and it’s employees) are treating their customers as if they were you? The reason is a certain mindset within the organization which could be summarized as:

• We know better than our customers what is good for them
• Our organization is so great/innovative/creative that our customers just have to love us
• If they don’t want our products or services, they simply don’t get it

So what it takes to deliver a perfect customer experience is humbleness. I don’t mean cringingness - what I am talking about is the presence of a mindest within the organization that first of all the customer is always right.

But is the customer really always right? YES HE IS! Because the customers’ perception is reality.

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Why should you care about sales mistakes if you are not a sales person? Let’s look at a generic definition Sales is the act of meeting prospective buyers and providing them with a product or service in turn of money or other required compensation. Now if you take one step back and look at the bigger picture, here is what comes to mind: Everyone of us is selling products or services.

When we talk about a sales person, some people think strictly about the person that is walking from door to door selling insurance or newspaper subscriptions. Yet this view is too narrow. When you are giving a presentation to your boss about your latest project or a new business idea and trying to get funding and additional support - this is just as much a selling process as selling life insurance is. And even convincing your girl- or boyfriend to go on a certain weekend trip is a selling process .
This list is based on the book with the same title, which can be bought online here. In the following article I want to give you a quick overview of the mistakes and how to avoid them:

No. 1: Not being obsessed

The solution: Forget about input and how much time you have invested. Focus on the output of your work and maintain a commitment to results all the time.

[Read more]

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Steven D. Levitt, author at the Freakonomics blog, writes about what he calls Outrageously Good Customer Service. His story is a great example of a company which is

• using information about its customers to determine the most important, highly valuable customers
• deploying dedicated employees whose task is to “monitor” these high value customers
• actively working to deliver a remarable customer experience by ensuring that their product or service offering is delivered in the best possible way

 

Here are Steve’s experiences:

Number 1:
Halfheartedly, I approached the counter and said that I had a seat on this plane, but it was probably long gone. The woman behind the gate, Carlene Boyd, replied, “Is your name Steve Levitt?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “I thought you might show up. So I saved your seat until the last second. Here it is, feel free to board.” I didn’t think to ask her why she thought I would show up so late. But that one simple act was enough to make me loyal to American Airlines until the end of time.

Number 2:
As I sat down to a dinner of fast food Chinese, my cell phone rang. The caller was a United Airlines employee named Michael. (Sorry, Michael, I can’t recall your last name.) He said, “I see that you’re at the airport and your flight is delayed a few hours. A seat opened up on an earlier flight, so I grabbed it for you in case you wanted it. It leaves in forty minutes, so you’ll have to hurry.”

His conclusion:
I have no illusions as to why American and United are nice to me: I travel way too much and they are the major airlines serving Chicago. I am a good customer. Still, compared to all the other things that airlines can do — serve warm nuts, show good movies, give a few inches of legroom — I would trade it all for a few more instances in which the airline does something out of the ordinary to get me home faster to see my wife and kids.

And this is exactly the point of remarkable experiences: doing something out of the ordinary makes your customers perform better (being at home with your kids earlier) and they will most probably come back next time they need your service.

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Everyone of us is struggling with the ongoing flood of information (especially email) and is trying to keep ahead of these endless lists of things to-do’s.

Here is a list of various famous/important/successful people and how they are getting things done:

Bill Gates, Founder Microsoft: How I Work

On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.

Marc Andreessen, Founder Netscape: Marc Andreessen’s Guide to Personal Productivity

One of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures is indulging in productivity porn. Productivity porn (or, for those really in the know, “productivity pr0n”) consists of techniques, tactics, and tricks for maximizing personal productivity — or, as they say, “getting things done”.

Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault (France) and Nissan (Japan): How I Work

Stress builds up when you know that there is a problem but you do not clearly see it, and you do not have a solution. We’re all human. I want to assure you I feel the same pain and the same stress and the same jet lag as anybody else. You have nights when you cannot sleep, and the stress is unbearable. It happens to every single person in a job like this.

[Read more]

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…that’s the name of a project that describes itself as a web-based news feed delivering must-know information if you are trying to sell to, connect with, or understand young people. threebillion is built from links to content on other websites.

They have produced a video on behalf of MTV Asia with the title: Thirty-six youth facts in one-hundred fifty seconds.

(found via PSFK)

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