Erica Mancuso: Why customers should get the benefit of the doubt

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We've all experienced an outrageous customer.

Perhaps they lied or exaggerated. They might have been unreasonably angry. Others make a mistake and then blame you for the problem. Some are too obstinate to cooperate as you try to help them.

It's natural to be dismissive. Why should you have to serve someone who lies, throws a tantrum, blames you, and then refuses to be part of the solution?

Erica Mancuso has a counterintuitive suggestion. When customers are outrageous, we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Mancuso is one of ICMI's top 50 thought leaders to follow on Twitter, and the Director of Offer Management at nThrive. We recently had a conversation about the importance of giving customers the benefit of the doubt.

Here are a few of the questions that Mancuso answered:

• What does it mean to assume good intent?

• Are there things that make it more difficult?

• How do you get a customer to be more rational?

• How do you get out of the mindset that customers are just being jerks?

• Why is it important to assume a customer has good intentions?

You can watch the full interview or read the highlights below.

What does it mean to assume good intent?

"Most people when they go to work everyday, they're not trying to complain about everything," said Mancuso. "They're trying to get a job done."

She explained that customers contact customer service because they're frustrated about a problem. Their primary goal is to get the problem resolved and to feel better about it.

Mancuso shared that it's natural for customers to exaggerate when they're upset. "Sure, will they embellish things a little bit? Maybe. Haven't we all done that as customers at some point in time? We do."

Assuming good intent requires us to look beyond the customer's outrageous behavior and realize what's behind it.

"The client has good intentions," said Mancuso. "They're not trying to wreck my day. They just want the issue resolved."

See more at the :29 in the interview.

Are there things that make it more difficult to assume good intent?

Situations where a customer appears to be lying or obviously exaggerating can be especially difficult.

In my book, Getting Service Right, I shared a story about Paul, a night club manager who took a call from an unreasonable customer. The customer's credit card company had issued a fraud alert, and the customer angrily accused one of Paul's employees of stealing the card number. Paul knew this wasn't true, and he struggled with his instinctive reaction to dismiss the customer's concerns.

Mancuso described this as a common challenge. "We all tend to embellish things when we're frustrated."

It can be tempting to catch a customer in a lie, or point out how they're wrong. However, that tactic usually makes things worse, not better.

Go to 3:31 in the interview to hear more.

How do you bring a customer back to a more rational place?

Mancuso recommends asking specific questions to redirect the conversation.

For example, if a customer tells you something "never works" ask them specifically how many times the error occurred and what they were doing when they noticed it.

The key is to partner with the customer to gather facts and avoid accusing them of anything. "You do it in an empathetic way," said Mancuso. "You don't want the person on the other end to feel like an idiot."

Using specific questions echos similar advice contact center expert, Myra Golden, shared with me in our interview. Golden suggests starting with three closed-ended questions such as "Are you using a Mac or a PC?" to help the customer regain a more rational mindset.

Hear more on this topic at 5:02.

How do you get out of the mindset that customers are just being jerks?

Mancuso suggests that customer service professionals be willing to learn from their experiences. It's important to reflect on situations where a customer is exaggerating and think about better ways to handle them.

"Let's not shy away from these difficult conversations," said Mancuso. "They're going to help you grow as a professional."

One of the biggest obstacles is taking it personally when a customer directs their anger towards you. "You have to understand they're not angry at you, they're angry at the situation."

Not taking it personally can be easier said than done. Outrageous customers often trigger our fight or flight instinct, which is our natural urge to either argue with the customer or get away from them.

Go to the 8:12 mark to hear more.

Why is it important to assume a customer's intentions are good?

"You tend to be more empathetic when you assume good intent," said Mancuso. Empathy is a core customer service skill used to help customers feel better.

Mancuso explained that feelings are a powerful part of the customer experience. "We know that their overall experience with a company is one third what happens and two thirds how you make them feel."

Assuming good intentions often helps you wade through the customer's exaggerations and understand what's really bothering them. It's the mark of a true professional when you can regulate your own emotions and find a way to help the customer feel great at the end of the conversation.

Hear more at 11:23 in the interview.

Additional Resources

Mancuso shared some additional tips for serving upset customers in this article published by ICMI.

You can get even more ideas from my LinkedIn Learning course, Working with Upset Customers. You'll need a LinkedIn Learning subscription to view the entire program, but a 30-day trial is available.

Manage upset customers like a pro from Working with Upset Customers by Jeff Toister

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How to adjust to new customer expectations

Advertising disclosure: This blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.

The lone cashier answered the phone while she rang up another customer's purchase. She seemed detached from both interactions, as she split her focus between the customer in front of her and the one on the phone.

I could only hear one side of the phone conversation. "The truck comes in today," said the cashier. (Scans an item.)

"I don't know what's on it." (Scans another item.)

"About half will be stocked by tonight." (Scan.)

"I don't know what's on it." (Points out order total to customer in front of her.)

"It will be here in about an hour." (Mouths "thank you" to customer in front of her as she hands him a receipt.)

This has become a normal service interaction. Companies are woefully understaffed. Customers can't get the information they want. Inventory is unpredictable and shipments are frequently delayed.

Are customers okay with this? The short answer is, "No."

How customer expectations have shifted

I launched a LinkedIn poll to ask people whether their expectations as a customer had shifted during the pandemic. It's a small sample size, just 143 participants, but the responses are revealing.

The comments point to two general trends.

1. Customers are making a concerted effort to be more patient and empathetic.

2. They also expect businesses to continue treating them as valued customers, and do a better job of communicating changes to normal service levels.

Kate: "My empathy has increased. Maybe most of all for the farmers from whom I buy my food. But for everyone–I think it’s a safe assumption that every business or customer support person I interact with is struggling in some way, facing some hardship."

Rama: "I don't expect less–I do understand that every part of a transaction may have slowed down, but that just means I expect communication to be improved. Not necessarily more personal or faster; just complete information, even if it's in autoresponder format."

Margie: "I think I’m getting a bit tired of hearing from businesses, 'Well due to COVID our wait times will be longer...' 'Due to COVID..this and that...' It’s as if COVID is the excuse for everything. How long is this a viable excuse for service issues?"

Namecca: "My patience has drastically increased. As an efficiency lunatic, I used to see all the flaws in the process and get frustrated in traffic, in line, at the store, etc. Now it just is what it is. Flexible, more compassion and definitely more deliberate actions in my personal life. I still expect that people show up to do a good job but when they don't or can't I am more forgiving for sure."

Bryan: "It's heartbreaking to see so many businesses, mostly restaurants, fold during this time. I both respect and understand the levels of change they have to bring everyday to just survive."

Resources to improve service

Nearly every company was in some sort of survival mode in March. They were either fighting to stay in business, like restaurants, or were completely overwhelmed with business, like grocery stores.

Now we're more than five months into the pandemic. Companies need a better, more long-term solution. The alternative is losing even more customers to competitors that are better able to adapt.

The starting point is a customer service vision. This is a shared definition of outstanding service that gets everyone on the same page. If you want your team to be great, you must first define greatness.

These resources can help you:

• Guide: How to write your vision in a virtual meeting

• Video: Leading a customer-centric culture

• Book: The Service Culture Handbook

Another essential step is to better manage customer expectations. This includes clear, proactive communication to let customers know what's changed.

This LinkedIn Learning course can help you. You can access the course with your LinkedIn Learning subscription or get a 30-day trial.

Understand the impact of unpleasant surprises from Customer Service: Managing Customer Expectations by Jeff Toister

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Alexander Salas: Why quizzes are a poor way to measure training

How do you evaluate customer service training?

Most trainers don't measure it beyond tracking attendance and giving people a smile survey at the end of every class. Employees attend training, then go back to work without any proof they learned something useful.

Some trainers use gut instinct.

For instance, a learner who asks fewer questions or displays greater confidence as the training goes along is considered trained. Never mind that some people who are completely incapable of doing the job ask no questions and display amazing amounts of confidence.

Still other trainers use quizzes. Participants are given tests to assess their knowledge of the content. The thought is a good quiz score indicates the person can do the job.

But can they?

I recently discussed the use of quizzes with Alexander Salas, Chief of Awesomeness at eLearning Launch, an online academy for instructional designers. We discussed the reasons why quizzes are often a poor way to measure training, and what trainers can do instead.

Here are a few questions Salas addressed in our conversation:

• Why are quizzes a poor way to measure training?

• What should we do instead of quizzing learners?

• Why should companies avoid corporate universities?

• What metrics should I use to evaluate training?

• How do I justify my training programs to executives?

You can watch the full interview or read some of the highlights below.

Why are quizzes a poor way to measure training?

"In terms of workplace learning, you have to ask yourself why you are asking people to take a quiz," said Salas. 

The goal of training is rarely for people to acquire and retain information. We usually give them information so they can use it to do a better job. That's where quizzes fall short—they don't show us whether an employee can do better work as a result of training.

Salas also discussed the challenge people have retaining information they learn in a training. A quiz might assess your knowledge level today, but two weeks later learners might have forgotten a lot of the knowledge they learned if it wasn't reinforced on the job in some way.

You can hear more on this topic at the 1:17 mark in the interview.

What should we be doing instead of quizzes to evaluate training?

Training should be evaluated by having participants demonstrate the performance you expect to see on the job. This can be done in a controlled training setting, or through on-the-job observations after training.

"Ideally, what you want to do is understand your purpose," said Salas. "What is your scope? Where are you ending?"

Salas argues that a quiz makes sense if your end goal is for people to have knowledge. Unless you're in academics, that's rarely the objective in the workplace.

In most cases, you really want people to be able to do something with that information. For example, if you want people to build better rapport with customers, then being able to identify rapport-building techniques on a multiple choice quiz is not enough. 

Your evaluation plan should include participants demonstrating that they are able to build rapport, either in an in-class simulation or with real customers.

This evaluation process starts when you first design a training program.

Decide what a fully trained person looks like, and then work backwards to create a program to get people to that goal. That picture of a fully trained person should describe what the person should be able to demonstrate after the training is complete. (Here's a guide to help you do that.)

Go to 2:27 in the interview to hear more.

Why should companies avoid corporate universities?

Salas argues that too many companies mirror academia when they set up a training function. "What is school called in the business world? Training."

Training departments are often called corporate universities. Content is organized in a series of classes. Classes are often grouped into "certificate" programs to reward participants for completing a certain amount of content. Quizzes are used to assess learning, just like in school.

I once ran a corporate university that was set up this way. Being a results person, I studied whether taking a certain number of classes correlated with better job performance. There turned out to be no correlation at all.

Some people who attended every class were indeed successful, while others who attended every class were mediocre performers. There were other employees that never went to a class, yet were objectively high performers.

This insight caused me to scrap the corporate university approach. 

What we did instead was focus on helping employees improve their job performance. We assessed employee skills gaps at an individual level, and created customized plans to help people grow.

Salas shares more at the 11:20 mark.

What metrics can we use to evaluate training?

"There's an evolution that you want professionals to go through," said Salas. "If they're beginners, and they're in customer service training programs, you want them to perform at a specific standard."

For example, if an employee is expected to respond to emails with a certain level of quality, there should be a clear standard that defines what a quality email looks like. Once that's defined, the employee's training should be evaluated by whether or not they can demonstrate the ability to write emails according to the quality standard.

More veteran employees might be evaluated a little differently. According to Salas, "You want them to progress to a level where they start creating their own improvements to the workflow, improvements to the way they do their work."

Using the same email example, you might evaluate an employee's learning by their contributions to updating or writing knowledge base articles that can help the entire team work faster and more accurately.

Go to 14:47 in the interview to hear more.

How do I justify my training programs to executives?

Salas suggests the process starts up front, when executives request training. "The question that you pose, when you get that request, is 'What do you want out of the training? Do you want performance, or do you want knowledge?'"

Trainers can then tailor the training program and evaluation strategy to meeting the executive sponsor's expectations.

We talk more about this at 17:39 in the interview.

Additional Resources

Salas provides elearning consulting at Style Learn and runs an online academy for instructional designers at eLearning Launch.

He's also a good person to follow on LinkedIn for content and though-provoking questions around training and instructional design.

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Myra Golden: How to Improve Your Call Control Skills

Call control is part art, part science.

It's the ability to politely, yet quickly move along a customer service call. These skills were originally a big part of call center agent training back when talk time, or handle time, was considered an essential metric.

Today, fewer contact centers are holding agents accountable for the length of each call, but call control still remains an important skill.

• Customers don't want to waste time.

• Quicker calls generally lead to higher satisfaction.

• Faster calls allow you to serve more customers.

I interviewed contact center expert, Myra Golden, to get tips on call control skills. Golden is a certified master de-escalation instructor and customer experience designer who has an impressive call control course on LinkedIn Learning.

Here are just a few topics we covered in our conversation:

• What is call control?

• Why do calls take longer than they should?

• How do you use call control skills with upset customers?

• How can contact centers make call control easier for agents?

• What can agents do to make customers feel great, but still keep the call on track?

You can watch the full, 22 minute interview or skim some of the highlights below.

What is call control?

Golden offered a succinct definition of call control.

"Call control is the art of politely moving a call forward to closure."

Many customer calls go on longer than they need to. Some customers are upset, while others are just extra talkative.

Years ago, when I had my first full-time job as a contact center agent, I had a regular customer who was quite the talker. He could talk to me for an hour about the smallest of issues. The customer wasn't angry—he just seemed to have a lot of time on his hands.

He was also an important customer who worked for one of my biggest accounts, so I felt I had to stay on the phone as long as he wanted.

One day, an experienced colleague pulled me aside and explained how the long phone calls were keeping me away from other customers. He had just taken a call from another customer of mine who didn't want to wait to speak to me.

It was then that I realized that I needed a better way to keep my important customer happy, while avoiding friction with other customers and my coworkers.

You can hear more of Golden's definition of call control at the :52 second mark of the interview.

Why do calls take longer than they should?

"A lot of the time, it's the customer," said Golden. "They don't know how to get to the point. They want to tell you the backstory and the journey of how they got there."

That was my important customer. He could talk for days about the smallest thing.

Of course, there are many times when the customer service professional causes a call to go on too long. One example is when we don't provide enough information.

"We lose control when we don't proactively answer the customer's questions," said Golden. For example, if you tell a customer someone will get back to them, that invites a number of follow-up questions.

• Who will reach out?

• How will they contact the customer?

• When will they reach out?

It's better to use clear and specific language up front to set expectations, so the customer doesn't need to ask a lot of follow-up questions. For example, you could tell a customer, “I will give you a call back by Monday at 4pm with an update.”

Hear more about why calls take too long at the 3:24 mark of the interview.

How do you use call control skills with upset customers?

Customer service professionals frequently try to speed up the call when they encounter an upset customer. They try to get straight to the point and solve the problem quickly.

Unfortunately, this often backfires.

Customers are more judgmental and less open to ideas when they're angry. An upset customer might resist your suggestions for a quick solution, which ends up prolonging the call.

"When a person is upset, they are very often in the emotional side of their brain," said Golden. The solution is finding a way to help soothe the customer's emotions and get them back to their rational brain. It’s counterintuitive to spend extra time soothing the customer, but this often helps the call go shorter.

Golden has some very good suggestions for doing this. Check out her full explanation at 6:09 in the interview.

How can contact centers make call control easier for agents?

Contact center agents are often hampered by cumbersome procedures or inflexible systems. Golden relayed a story about her own experience as a contact center manager.

When Golden listened to agent calls, she quickly noticed a problem.

"My agents had to ask seven questions before they could get to the problem," said Golden. This made the calls sound more like an interview or even an interrogation, rather than a conversation.

The key to fixing this problem is using a call flow and computer system that is flexible enough to allow you to solve the issue in a non-linear fashion.

"If the customer started out with their story, you could jump right to notes and record while they talk," said Golden. You could then go back and ask for the required information once the customer had shared their story. This led to a more conversational tone, and also limited the amount of times a rep had to interrupt the customer to get required information.

Hear more at the 9:57 mark in the interview.

What can agents do to keep calls on track?

Golden provided several suggestions that can be used, depending on the situation.

When a customer is friendly and talkative, she recommends giving a polite, but minimal response. "I live in Oklahoma. During tornado season, you'd be surprised at how many people ask about the weather. I could talk for 20 minutes about that."

A minimal response to a question about tornadoes might be, "Yes, we did have tornados last night, but fortunately the damage was minimal."

You can then redirect the call back to the issue at hand. I really could have used that technique with my talkative customer back in the day!

Golden gives some additional tips for getting a call back on track when the customer is really angry. Check them out at 13:37 in the interview.

Additional Resources

You can get more resources, check out Golden's blog, and learn more about Golden's customer service training programs on her website.

Golden's LinkedIn Learning course on call control is outstanding, and I highly recommend it for anyone who serves customers over the phone.

What you need to know about internal customer service

"I won't give you that report."

The report tracked the percentage of successful credit card offers made by each sales rep in our contact center. The initiative was created by the marketing department, and a marketing manager controlled access to the report. 

This was more than twenty years ago, when large reports were printed and distributed as physical copies. The data you can get with a few clicks today required someone with access to the right computer system back then.

The manager treated me with open disdain when I called and asked to be added to the distribution list. She worked in the great kingdom of marketing, while I was in the lowly call center.

Withholding the report was a power play.

We've all encountered internal roadblocks like this manager. These are coworkers who should be on our side, but appear to steadfastly work against us. It's frustrating and annoying.

There is a solution.

I eventually got my own copy of the report. And I learned how to overcome the internal stigma of working in the call center to successfully partner with other departments. One program added an extra $1 million per year in additional revenue.

The secret is understanding your most important internal customers, and learning how to become indispensable to them.

What is internal customer service?

A customer is anyone you serve, so internal customer service is serving internal customers. This includes several groups of coworkers:

• People on your team

• Your boss

• People in other departments

It can also include other groups such as contractors, vendors, and partners who work closely with us.

The marketing manager didn't view me as an internal customer, so she was dismissive of my request because it didn’t appear to benefit her. But I was a customer—her department was "selling" the report, and I wanted to buy it.

There are a few qualities that make internal service unique:

• Frequent interactions

• Closer interpersonal relationships (sometimes)

• Two-way service

Two-way service occurs when each party serves the other, so you're each other's customer. 

My mistake in approaching the marketing manager was not recognizing a two-way service relationship. She was a customer for my services as well, since she was responsible for the credit card project and she could benefit if the acceptance rate improved. But I didn’t consider her needs when I requested the report.

Eventually, I was able to share my progress. She gladly added me to the report distribution once she saw that I was helping her numbers look good.

You can identify your own internal customers with the help of this short training video.

Define internal customer service from Customer Service: Serving Internal Customers by Jeff Toister

Identifying your most important internal customers

It's great to have positive relationships with all of your internal customers. There are a few individuals or groups where a great relationship is extra important to your success.

For instance, the marketing manager could have been an important ally for my project. We both shared the same goal of increasing the credit card acceptance rate. My job got more difficult when she refused to put me on the distribution list for the report.

I learned from this experience the next time I worked on a project that involved another department. One example was call center agents were asked to upsell slow-moving products, but were having little success.

A merchandising manager and his team were internal customers for this project. I was there customer, too, I needed their help to identify the right sales pitch for our call center agents to make to customers.

Rather than tell the manager what I needed from him, I started this relationship by asking more about what he was trying to achieve. This led to a few insights:

• Slow-moving products took up valuable space in the warehouse.

• Selling these items freed up cash to invest in better products.

• The manager was evaluated based on how well his purchases sold.

Once I understood these needs, I was able to describe how I could help him achieve his goals. This made him a willing partner who was eager to help me get what I needed to our call center agents could improve their sales.

Can you identify your most important customers and their needs?

Identify key customer relationships from Customer Service: Serving Internal Customers by Jeff Toister

How do you provide outstanding internal customer service?

The fundamentals of customer service are similar, whether your customers are external or internal.

1. Build rapport and establish a positive relationship.

2. Listen carefully to understand your customers' needs.

3. Take action to help your customer succeed.

This was how I approached my relationship with the merchandising manager and his team. I asked to meet with them to kick off our project, and then I listened carefully to their needs.

The call center agents who were asked to upsell these products were also my customer, since I needed to support their performance. I listened to calls, and met with several agents to understand what worked and what didn't. This helped me understand exactly what they needed to do their jobs well.

All that listening helped us identify several solutions that quickly improved sales. The program generated an additional $1 million in revenue over the course of the first year.

Take Action

You can create great relationships with your own internal customers following this same process:

1. List your internal customers

2. Identify your key customers to focus on

3. Listen to their needs, and take action to help them

This lesson stayed with me throughout my corporate career. Whenever I identified an important internal customer, I took time to understand their needs. It became far easier to get what I wanted when I could demonstrate my commitment to helping them get what they wanted.

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Lessons From The Overlook: See the Big Picture

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a periodic 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.

One small mistake caused the whole relationship to unravel.

My wife, Sally, and I had high hopes when we hired a company to install air conditioning at The Overlook. We were looking to find a reliable partner that could service the HVAC system going forward. Our property manager was interested in a referral to serve the more than 50 homes they managed.

The company's general manager made one small mistake when he wrote the estimate. And when that mistake began to unravel, he focused on the wrong details. It soon became a big problem.

This could have been prevented if the general manager had seen the big picture.

Why you should anticipate problems

Service failures can cause customers to actively consider pulling their business. It takes time and money to make things right. You are almost always better off preventing a problem than having to fix it.

The problem the general manager missed was a simple one.

The thermostat at The Overlook is located in the living room. The heat from the afternoon sun tricked the thermostat into thinking the house was hot, so the air conditioner kept running even though the rest of the house was cold.

He spent a lot of time walking the property when he created the estimate. Many other problems were anticipated. His thoroughness was one of the reasons his company won the business, despite being the most expensive bid.

The one mistake shouldn’t have been a big deal. But the problem got worse.

Installation day was a long one. The crew was hoping to get the system installed in one day, because the company was located an hour away. A second day of work would mean two hours of driving.

They were anxious to leave when they started to check the system. The desire to leave quickly overrode the desire to avoid a second trip.

They missed the problem with the thermostat. What they didn’t realize at the time was a second trip would now be inevitable. A trip that would inconvenience the company, and also inconvenience the customer.

Think about the time and effort you put into solving customer problems. How much could you save in time, money, and customer goodwill if those problems were prevented?

How focusing on the little picture can cost you

Getting stuck on a small detail can dramatically increase your costs. Tiny mistakes become huge service failures that drive customers to your competitors.

Sally and I noticed the problem with our AC system the next day. The living room was warm in the afternoon, so it kept running while the rest of the house was cool.

I called the general manager and talked through the issue. He recommended we install some temperature sensors in other rooms. The thermostat could then take an average of all the temperature readings throughout the house and use the average temperature to decide when to run.

We set a time the following Monday for him to come back and meet Sally at the cabin to install the sensors. That was two hours of driving for him, so an extra cost. The Overlook is a two-hour drive from our house, so Sally spent four hours driving plus the extra time on site—effectively the entire day.

He arrived at The Overlook without the sensors. 

They weren't in stock. Rather than re-scheduling the appointment for a time when he had the sensors on-hand, he decided to move forward with the meeting. Sally didn't find out until she was already at the cabin.

The general manager focused on the little picture—keeping the meeting—and lost sight of the fact that he would have to waste two hours and Sally would have to waste an entire day.

He agreed to order the sensors and come back to install them. We tried to handle that appointment remotely, but the technicians sent to do the work couldn't access our smart thermostat without one of us present. Another failure of anticipation.

The technicians just left the sensors at the cabin, which caused another problem. We had guests coming in a few days, and couldn't just leave equipment lying around. Another failure.

This required another visit for Sally. Another day wasted driving to the cabin and back. The general manager saw his profits whittling away, so he initially balked at meeting Sally at the cabin to help install the sensors. He tried to convince Sally that she could do it on her own in "five minutes." Another failure.

He finally relented and agreed to meet her at the cabin. It ended up taking him, an HVAC expert, two hours to get the system working properly, not the five minutes he had promised.

Time and time again, the general manager missed the big picture:

• The thermostat is the key to the whole system.

• We all wanted to minimize time-consuming trips to the cabin.

• A good impression could lead to 50 or more new customers.

Focusing on the big picture can help you avoid problems and repeat problems. It can also help you understand the true value of making things right instead of worrying about small expenses.

Take a moment to think about the big picture from your customer's perspective. How can you help them achieve their goal?

How to focus on the big picture

Customer-focused companies start with a customer experience vision. This is a shared definition of an outstanding experience that gets everyone on the same page.

On an individual level, I recommend the Thank You Letter challenge. It's a powerful visualization exercise that helps you earn positive customer feedback.

Give yourself more time to see the big picture and anticipate problems by slowing down. It’s counterintuitive, but you can often serve customers faster when you go slow.

Think about our AC system. The general manager could have prevented three extra trips to our cabin for his company, plus two extra trips for us, if he had just taken a few minutes to note the location of the thermostat when he created the estimate.

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An Easy Way to Evaluate Your Training

My reputation was getting battered, and I didn't like it.

This was years ago, when I supervised a training department in a contact center. New hires often struggled after completing our initial training program, and their supervisors would conveniently blame my team.

The training program wasn't the problem, but I couldn't prove it. The contact center director wasn’t interested in my perspective when she had multiple supervisors saying their agents had not been properly trained. Feelings became facts in the absence of data.

So I decided to find a way to get the data.

This led me to take a crash course on training evaluation. I didn't discover any of the models popular in the training industry—I'd learn about those several years later. My sole focus was proving new hires had been trained.

The solution turned out to be incredibly simple. It gave me observable, quantifiable data that irrefutably proved new hires had been trained. If they struggled after training, there had to be some other reason.

Here's the simple principle I discovered, and how you can use it to evaluate your training programs as well.

Why is it important to evaluate training?

Evaluation can tell you whether or not training is working, and what needs to be improved. 

This can be done on a program level, where you evaluate the entire training program. Evaluation can also take place on an individual level, where you evaluate whether a participant has been fully trained.

It's an issue that gets executive attention. PwC's 2019 CEO survey discovered that CEOs see a lack of skills as a clear threat to the business:

• 79 percent feel a skill gap is a threat to the business

• 47 percent say a skill gap impacts customer experience

• Just 29 percent believe they have adequate data to address the issue

In my case, my department's credibility was at stake. I needed to find data I could show to our contact center director that proved our training programs were working just fine.

This is where evaluation comes in. (You can find more reasons to evaluate training here.)

How to evaluate training

There's one thing you should do first if you want to evaluate training: set clear learning objectives. The objectives should be specific, observable, and measurable.

This was the approach I took in the contact center.

I asked the supervisors, their managers, and the contact center director to describe what a fully trained agent looked like. The goal was to get their agreement on what an agent should be able to do before they graduated training.

Our agreement centered around the contact center's quality monitoring process. The leadership team agreed that agents needed to achieve passing quality scores on live calls before they graduated new hire training.

The rest was now easy.

New hires already took live calls in class, under the watchful eye of a trainer. The only change we had to make was have the trainer complete a monitoring form for several calls per agent. 

This approach provided a lot of instant benefits:

• Documented each agent had been trained.

• Identified specific skills for agents to improve.

• Tracked areas where the training program needed to improve.

Notice the goals we set centered around agents doing the actual job. Evaluating training based on passing a quiz or getting through a certain amount of content doesn't provide proof that someone has been trained. We need to see them do the work.

You can establish your own training goals using the A-B-C-D method. This model will guide you through a simple process.

More Resources

You can learn more about evaluating training programs from my Measuring Learning Effectiveness course on LinkedIn Learning.

Evaluating learning programs from Measuring Learning Effectiveness by Jeff Toister

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What is the Difference Between Rewards and Recognition?

Advertising disclosure: This blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.

A healthcare CEO recently wrote to me with a question about incentives.

He had read The Service Culture Handbook, and was surprised that I did not include a section on incentivizing employees to align with the culture. The CEO was looking for resources to motivate and reward his team.

A lot of leaders have this same question. My advice is surprising.

• A rewards program is a very bad idea.

• Employees don't need to be motivated.

• Recognition can be helpful, if you do it right.

I've covered this topic in previous posts, so here are a few links if you'd like a refresher:

• How incentives crush motivation

• Why internal competition is a bad idea

• Why you should stop trying to motivate employees

It's important to note that none of the customer-focused companies I researched for The Service Culture Handbook emphasized rewards to incentivize employees. Recognition, however, often does play a role.

This post focuses on the critical difference between those two terms: rewards and recognition.

What are employee rewards?

Rewards and recognition often get conflated, but they're really two different concepts. Recognition can be useful if done correctly, but rewards generally cause harm.

Here's a definition of rewards from my book, Getting Service Right:

Rewards are if-then propositions that are designed to incentivize employees to engage in certain behaviors. The actions or results required to earn the reward are spelled out ahead of time so employees know how to win the prize.

Examples of rewards I've seen customer service leaders use include:

• Cash incentives for earning good survey scores.

• Contests to see who can reply to the most emails.

• Prizes for getting good mystery shopper results.

• Games where employees can earn badges for completing training modules.

• Company swag for achieving perfect attendance for a month.

Rewards typically cause two big problems.

The first is rewards can diminish employees' natural motivation. Offer a $100 gift card for good survey scores one month, and employees will come to expect a $100 gift card for good survey scores going forward. 

The second problem is even worse. Rewards often incentivize the wrong behaviors. For example, offering a reward for good survey scores often leads to manipulated survey results, not better service.

What is employee recognition?

Recognition can be very helpful, if used correctly. Here's a definition from Getting Service Right:

Recognition is given when an employee does something positive as a way of encouraging the employee to repeat the behavior. It can be something tangible—like a gift card or a day off—or something intangible, such as praise from the boss or an employee-of-the-month award. Unlike rewards, the path to earning recognition isn't shared with employees beforehand. It's an unexpected surprise for a job well done.

Examples of recognition I’ve seen customer service leaders use include:

• Praise for helping an upset customer.

• A gift card as a thank you for solving a tough problem.

• Lunch for the team to celebrate a successful project.

• A “wall of fame” where positive customer feedback is displayed.

• Company swag to commemorate a big accomplishment.

Unlike rewards, recognition is difficult to game. That’s because it happens after the behavior occurs and is not predictable. Used in this way, rewards are a clear signal to employees that their performance is valued.

Customer-focused companies I've studied often use peer recognition programs where employees are recognized by coworkers for outstanding contributions. 

Infographic

In summary, rewards often promote unhealthy behaviors while recognition encourages employees to continue positive behaviors.

Here's an infographic you can use to share this concept.

Amazingly Simple Graphic Design Software - Canva

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How to Write Your Vision in a Virtual Meeting

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.

A new client is headquartered in Seattle, but they have employees all over the west coast and as far east as Denver.

The client recently gathered a team in Seattle to write the company's customer experience vision statement. They used the step-by-step instructions from The Service Culture Handbook to guide them.

It was expensive and time-consuming to fly people to headquarters, but my client felt it was worthwhile. Participants were motivated by the process and felt the result was truly reflective of the company culture.

Many companies don't have the option to bring employees together right now. Travel budgets are being slashed and in-person gatherings are limited. Employees might be located all over the globe where there are extensive restrictions on international travel.

I'm going to show you how to adapt my vision writing process to a virtual meeting. To keep this post shorter, I'll focus on the changes you need to make to the original process.

What is a customer experience vision?

It is a shared definition of outstanding customer experience that gets everyone on the same page.

Having a customer experience, or CX, vision allows you to align your people, process, and product in the same direction. You can use it to avoid internal conflicts and get everyone focused on delivering a consistently good experience.

Here's an example from Convo, an app-based video relay service for deaf and hard of hearing people:

Our mission is to connect humans through universal communication solutions shaped by visual and cultural experiences.

This statement was created using the process in The Service Culture Handbook. In the book, I called this statement a customer service vision. Over time, I've realized the importance of focusing on the broader customer experience. 

Fortunately, the process for writing a customer experience vision is exactly the same.

Prepare your virtual meeting

The in-person meeting lasts two hours, but I’ve found the virtual meeting should be scheduled for 2.5 hours. It takes a bit more time to get everyone to collaborate virtually.

Aside from adding 30 minutes to the meeting, there are a number of steps you should take beforehand to ensure the meeting is a success.

Some of those steps remain the same, whether you're facilitating virtually or in-person. You can read the full process in this guide, but here's a summary:

1. Get buy-in from senior leaders.

2. Identify existing cultural artifacts.

3. Invite a cross-functional group of 7 to 10 people to participate. (Closer to 7 works better for virtual.)

4. Send out your one-question survey.

5. Identify your primary customer.

The one-question survey is sent to all employees who will be covered by the customer experience vision. Participants are invited to provide a free text response to this question:

What would you like customers to think of when they think about their experience?

Virtual meetings require some extra preparation in addition to the steps above:

1. Video conferencing platform

2. Shareable documents

3. Downloadable handout

Video Conferencing Platform

A video conferencing platform is essential so people can see and hear each other, and see the various draft vision documents you create.

There are three basic criteria for selecting a platform:

1. Compatibility. All participants must be able to access the platform.

2. Audio/Video: Every participant should join with audio and video.

3. Sharing: You’ll need the ability to share websites and presentations.

I've facilitated virtual CX vision writing sessions with both Zoom and MS Teams. Both platforms work well and are easy for participants to use.

The biggest difference between the two is Zoom allows you to create breakout rooms. The breakout room feature allows the meeting to run much closer to the original process, where two teams create their own separate draft visions before joining their ideas together in one statement. 

You'll need to make an adjustment to the process if you aren't able to put people in breakout rooms. I'll go over those adjustments in just a moment.

Shareable Documents

It's easy to use white boards or flip chart paper when facilitating an in-person meeting. While many video conferencing platforms have a whiteboard feature, I prefer to use a shareable online document, such as a Google Doc.

Here are some of the advantages:

• Multiple people can edit the document at once

• The documents automatically save changes

• You can easily access and share the documents outside of the meeting

These are the steps to creating your shareable documents:

1. Create all documents ahead of time, so you have them handy while facilitating the virtual session. All of the documents should be blank.

2. Make sure each document is fully shareable so you can share them with participants and access them yourself during the meeting.

3. You'll need just three documents if you'll be using breakout rooms, labeled as follows:

• Team A

• Team B

• Group

Adjustment for no breakout rooms: Create a shareable document for each participant and one for the entire team. I found it easiest to name the documents after each participant while naming the group document "Group." For example:

• Melanie

• Elijah

• Dennis

• Christina

• Chloe

• Freddy

• Luka

• Group

Downloadable Handout

Each participant should receive a downloadable handout prior to the meeting. The handout contains important information that participants should have access to throughout the session. 

I ask participants to do one of two things so they can easily see it without leaving the virtual meeting:

1. Print out the document, or

2. Display it on a second screen

I've created a Google Doc template that you can use. Here's an overview of the four sections it should contain:

Feedback and artifacts. Include a word cloud image of the one-question survey results. (Refer to this guide for more information.) This section should also contain any existing cultural artifacts, such as the company's mission statement, vision statement, values, brand slogan, or service standards.

Customer profile. Identify your primary customer along with additional examples of customer groups. The CX vision should focus on your primary customer.

Check questions. List the three questions used to quality check a vision statement.

1. Is it simple and easily understood?

2. Is it focused on our customers?

3. Does it reflect both who we are now and who we aspire to be in the future?

Document links. Provide links to all the shareable documents you'll be using in the vision writing session.

Bonus: Participant bios. In larger organizations, the participants in the vision writing meeting might not already know each other. If that's the case, it could be helpful to include very short biographies of each person in the handout. Name and role is good at a minimum. Keep in mind that there is no time built-in to the meeting agenda for introductions.

Preparation Summary

Make sure you complete all of these steps before your vision facilitation meeting:

1. Get buy-in from senior leaders.

2. Identify existing cultural artifacts.

3. Invite a cross-functional group of 7 to 10 people to participate. (Closer to 7 works better for virtual.)

4. Send out your one-question survey.

5. Identify your primary customer.

6. Select a video conferencing platform.

7. Create shareable documents.

8. Make the downloadable handout.

9. Share the video conference login information and downloadable handout with all participants.

Facilitate the vision writing meeting

The meeting to write your customer experience vision should take 2.5 hours. The process for facilitating a virtual meeting is largely the same as the original, with three small changes:

• Jump In

• Virtual Facilitation

• Breakouts vs. No Breakouts

Jump In

Start the meeting right on time and get to business. You will feel time pressure throughout the meeting, and you do not want to add to it. The time pressure is by design, since a little pressure makes it easier to get participants' gut reactions.

Here are a few tips:

• Start the video conference a few minutes early to welcome people.

• Begin the meeting promptly, even if people are late.

• Skip introductions. I’ve found them to be unnecessary and time-consuming.

As a facilitator, part of your role is to keep things moving!

Virtual Facilitation

Running a virtual meeting of any kind takes a little more energy than running that same meeting in person. We lack the visual cues of seeing each other's body language. You can't just grab a marker and draw an illustration on the whiteboard.

Here are a few general tips for effective virtual facilitation:

• Make sure all participants are visible on their web cameras.

• Call on people from time-to-time to ensure everyone participates.

• Keep the meeting moving, but be patient as people work with the technology.

Breakouts vs. No Breakouts

The original process breaks the group into two groups and gives each group 15 minutes to write a draft vision. This can be followed if your video conferencing platform allows you to create breakout rooms, but you'll need to make a few adjustments if this feature is not available.

Breakout Rooms

This works nearly identical to the in-person process. One small change is you should have created three shareable documents prior to the meeting, labeled Team A, Team B, and Group.

Here's what to do when it comes time to divide people into groups to draft vision statements:

1. Form two teams (A & B) of roughly equal numbers.

2. Ask each person to open the shareable document for their team (A or B).

3. Put participants in their breakout rooms and give them 15 minutes to write a draft vision statement.

4. Participants should type their draft directly onto the shareable document.

5. Pop into each breakout room from time-to-time to check on progress, answer questions, and remind people of how much time they have remaining.

At the end of the 15 minutes:

1. Go into each team's shareable document.

2. Copy their draft vision statement.

3. Paste the draft vision statement into the Group document.

You can then share the Group document with everyone and resume the normal meeting agenda.

No Breakout Rooms

You'll need to make a few more modifications to the process when the video conferencing platform you're using does not have breakout rooms. I took a remote facilitation idea from leadership expert, Grace Judson, and slightly modified it.

You should have created a shareable document for each participant plus a "Group" document prior to the meeting.

1. Ask each person to access their own shareable document.

2. Give participants five minutes to write a draft vision statement.

3. At the end of the five minutes, copy and paste each person's draft statement into the Group document (keeping the author anonymous).

You can then share the Group document with everyone. Here's where we make one more modification to the facilitation process:

1. Have participants quickly read all the statements.

2. Ask people to identify common themes.

3. Discuss what elements, words, or phrases people particularly like, and why.

The remaining process remains the same.

Need Extra Help?

There's a lot here. The process can seem intimidating at first. But don't worry, I'm here to help!

• Feel free to contact me with your questions.

• You can also schedule a call to walk through the process.

There's one last danger I want to point out. 

Each step in the process has been carefully chosen and tested. While you might be tempted to make some modifications, experience suggests that's a bad idea.

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Why you need to identify your primary customer

Updated: June 27, 2024

"I'm sure he's stealing," said the manager. "But I can't fire him."

I was visiting with the parking manager at a busy hospital location. We watched as the cashier served a steady stream of cars.

The manager suspected the cashier was stealing a small amount of cash each shift. He needed to investigate to get proof.

Our client, the hospital's facility manager, said no.

The cashier was was popular. People would line up at his gate, even when the line was shorter at another exit. He had even been featured on the local news.

The client felt the cashier was good for public relations. He was willing to overlook a small revenue shortfall.

The parking manager respected the client's wishes. After all, the hospital was his primary customer.

I want to help you identify your primary customer. Knowing your primary customer can lead to unexpected decisions such as letting a suspected thief keep on stealing.

Who is a customer?

A customer is anyone you serve. It could be someone who buys your products or services, but there are many other groups who could be considered a customer as well.

Here are just a few examples from the hospital parking operation:

• Hospital leaders (the client)

• Employees who work at the hospital

• Delivery drivers

• Patients

• Visitors

Think about the people you serve. The list might include groups that aren't traditionally considered to be customers, but fall under the definition of someone you serve:

• Vendors

• Contractors

• Coworkers

In some businesses, like hotels or nonprofits, identifying your customers is even more complicated.

The parking company served hospitals, office buildings, hotels, stadiums, airports, and other venues with paid parking. Here's an example of their customer list:

The parking manager at this specific hospital knew the client prioritized service over revenue.

It was located next to a large university. The hospital’s parking lots and garages would become full of students if it didn’t charge a nominal fee. That would make parking more difficult for patients, visitors, and employees.

The client hired the parking company to control access.

Most employees had monthly passes. Patients and visitors could get validated or reduced-rate parking. The average fee collected was just $2.

That’s why the long line of happy customers was far more important to our client than the $10 or so that might be missing from the cashier’s till each day.

Proving theft was difficult anyway.

The client insisted the parking lot’s exit gate be kept in the raised position during busy times. This allowed cars to exit much more quickly, but it prevented the parking manager from getting an accurate count of cars that exited.

The normal procedure was to note the number of times the gate was raised and lowered and compare that to the amount of fees collected at the end of the day. This was impossible to do when the gate stayed in the up position.

Create your own customer list to better understand the different groups you serve. This short training video walks you through the steps.

Identifying your customers from Customer Service Foundations by Madecraft and Jeff Toister

Who is your primary customer?

The primary customer ultimately pays the bills and drives your business. This is a type of customer, not to be confused with target customers or customer segments.

For example, let's say you manage a museum. Your primary customer is a visitor. You might have several target customer segments that you try to attract:

• General public

• School groups

• Tour groups

Each segment might include several sub-segments with different needs. For instance, the general public could be further divided into different groups:

• Members

• Locals who visit occasionally

• Vacationers from out of town

You could probably slice and dice these groups even more, but you get the idea. Overall, visitors are the museum's primary customer because that's who the museum exists to serve.

There are other customers the museum has to care for. Here are just a few:

• Referral partners such as hotels, tour organizers, and schools.

• Donors who help fund the museum.

• Members of the press who write stories about new exhibits.

All of these groups are important, but it's critical for museum employees to know that visitors are the primary customer.

There are two reasons why.

Focus

Your customer experience vision should focus on your primary customer. This is a shared definition of an outstanding experience that gets everyone on the same page.

At a museum, the vision influences all sorts of decisions including the layout, the curation of exhibits, the way exhibits are displayed, the recruitment of volunteers, and the way employees and volunteers interact with visitors.

A museum that creates an amazing experience for visitors will likely keep referral partners, donors, and the press quite happy as well. On the other hand, a poor experience will make it more difficult to attract partners, donors, or good press.

Prioritization

You sometimes need to prioritize the needs of one customer group over another.

Imagine a generous donor wants to fund a new museum exhibit. The exhibit is of personal interest to the donor, but would have limited appeal to the museum's visitors. Building the exhibit would also require another exhibit to be removed, potentially one that visitors really liked.

Taking a donation could be tempting, but in this case it would hurt the primary customer.

How can you identify your primary customer?

The best way to identify your primary customer is to think about the person or group of people who is most essential to your business. Without them, your business would not exist.

This is easy in some businesses. In a retail clothing store, that would be the people who buy your clothes. At a bank, it would be customers who deposit and borrow money.

It can be trickier in other industries.

A florist might take orders through a national service and deliver the floral arrangements to local recipients. Who is the primary customer, the national service or the local recipients?

The answer depends on which group is the ultimate economic driver.

It might be the national service if the vast majority of the florist's business comes through this partnership. Perhaps it's an exclusive relationship.

On the other hand, the primary customer would be the recipients if the florist also has its own local customers that it serves directly. The florist might supply local restaurants, hotels, and other businesses in addition to serving walk-in customers and taking delivery orders direct from the consumer.

Try to identify the group of customers who are most essential to your business. These are the people your business is naturally built around, and without whom your business would not exist.

Next Steps

Build a strong service culture requires you to focus on your primary customer.

Once you identify your primary customer, create a customer experience vision that focuses on what you do for them. You can use my step-by-step guide.

Are you ready to go all-in on service culture? Learn how: The Service Culture Handbook

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