Why monitoring systems are essential to great customer experience

Note: The following is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

Daniel Pascoe has never owned a car.

That might seem inconceivable to many people, but a car isn't necessary if you live in a city that has reliable public transportation—like Portland, Oregon. Portland's transportation system is run by TriMet, which provides bus, light rail, and commuter rail service.

Pascoe uses the bus to get to work and visit other parts of town. He occasionally uses TriMet's MAX light rail.

A MAX light rail train arriving at the Portland International Airport.

"The MAX is really convenient when you're going to the airport," he explained. "It takes you right into the terminal."

It’s an easy walk into the terminal from the MAX light rail stop at Portland International Airport.

Customers like Pascoe are trying to solve a transportation problem. They need to get from one place to another, and TriMet makes two fundamental promises to help them. The first is the published routes, which assure passengers they can get from their starting point to their destination. The second is the schedule, which promises to get passengers there by a certain time.

For Pascoe, TriMet's ability to consistently keep those promises makes him a fan of the service. He knows he can depend on TriMet to get him to work, or wherever else he wants to go, on time. "Reliability is a positive that TriMet is known for."

Monitoring for Broken Promises

One of the most important aspects of a Guaranteed Customer Experience is a system to ensure promises are being kept.

TriMet has something called the Operations Command Center to monitor its transportation network and provide real-time information and updates to operators, passengers, and other critical stakeholders. Video screens line the walls. Some show live camera feeds from various points along bus routes and rail lines, while others are continuously updated with important data. Employees are in contact with bus and train operators, repair crews, and other relevant personnel.

The command center is staffed 24 hours per day, seven days a week, with as many as 30 employees at any given time. The center is divided into three teams, with each team monitoring their section of Portland's geographical region. Employees keep an eye on buses, light rail lines, and trains to ensure they're running on time and to detect problems as quickly as they happen.

A Portland Streetcar moves past Powell’s Books in downtown Portland.

Jon Bell is TriMet's senior manager of customer experience. He explained that the command center employees are charged with helping TriMet keep its brand promise: We connect people with their community.

"We're not buses and trains," said Bell. "We're connecting people to life. We are truly the thread of the community, connecting people to jobs, school, family, and friends."

Bell understands that thousands of passengers rely on TriMet to be on time. "The moment you break that promise, that is a moment of truth." People won't trust TriMet if it's not reliable.

Employees in the Operations Command Center spring into action when an issue is detected and there's a danger that a bus or train might be delayed. They share alerts about accidents, construction, traffic congestion, and other problems. Command center employees work with bus and train operations to coordinate a solution to keep passengers moving while providing updated information on the status.

Passengers have a wide range of options for staying updated on transit schedules. The TriMet website features trip-planning tools, real-time arrival information for each route and station, and service alerts.

TriMet’s online trip planning tool.

Passengers can sign up to get alerts via email or text. Route stops have a unique ID that passengers use to get arrival information via text.

Text alert from bus stop #782. There is a #20 bus 6 minutes away and another one 21 minutes away.

Busier stops also have electronic display boards listing the expected arrival time of incoming buses or trains.

A display board at a TriMet bus stop shows the expected arrival times for buses.

Critical updates are provided on social media, and passengers can call TriMet to get arrival times or assistance planning a trip. There are also third-party apps, like Moovit, that share updated information.

Customer-focused organizations like TriMet create robust systems to monitor customer experience and sound alarms when promises might be broken. While many of these systems might appear insanely complicated, they're based on two simple questions:

1. What promises are we making?

2. How do we know we're keeping our promises?

Responding to Broken Promises

Monitoring for broken promises allows you to identify problems and fix them quickly.

I experienced TriMet's responsiveness while riding the MAX light rail to the airport. The train had just pulled into a station when the operator announced a delay. Passengers exchanged worried looks as they wondered if they’d still be able to catch their flight. One family of four was already cutting it close to their flight’s departure time, and they grew increasingly agitated with each passing minute.

A few minutes later, the operator announced that the train would not continue due to a problem on the track, and buses would be provided to shuttle passengers to another station where they could rejoin the light rail. People became even more nervous about their flights, unsure of when the shuttle buses would arrive or how much longer it would take to get to the airport.

The buses arrived quickly despite everyone's fears. We were efficiently transported to another station where a train was waiting to take us the rest of the way to the airport. The total delay was only about 30 minutes, and even the panicked family made it in time to catch their flight.

TriMet wins fans by keeping its promises to get passengers to a particular place by a certain time. This is an incredibly difficult challenge with multiple bus routes and rail lines spanning a wide geographical region. What really helps TriMet stand out is its ability to constantly monitor the customer experience and make adjustments before small problems become broken promises.

Conclusion

You can design your own experience monitoring system by answering two questions:

1. What promises are we making?

2. How do we know we're keeping our promises?

You can find a worksheet to guide you through the rest of the process here.

Learn more about how TriMet and other customer-focused organizations keep their promises from The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

How to improve customer service training with the 70-20-10 rule

What is the right amount of time to spend on training?

That's the question a customer service leader recently asked me. He had contacted me with some questions about lesson plans for a training class he was running with his team.

The team had gathered to take my Customer Service Foundations course on LinkedIn Learning. It was taking the team 4.5 hours to watch the videos and complete the exercises as a group. The manager wondered if this was too much, or too little time.

My answer surprised him because I suggested he spend less time on training, not more.

Instead, I suggested he leverage a little-known concept called the 70-20-10 rule. It could easily cut the time spent on training by nearly 50 percent while generating better results.

Here's what it is and how you can use it.

What is the 70-20-10 rule?

The concept was first developed based on research from the Center for Creative Leadership that showed leaders developed their skills from a variety of sources:

• 70 percent of their skills came from challenging assignments.

• 20 percent were learned from a boss or mentor.

• 10 percent came from formal training.

Two big caveats here:

• The word "rule" implies it's hard and fast science, but it’s not. It's more of a guide.

• While originally derived from leadership training, it's a good model to follow for other training topics.

I've had tremendous success applying this concept to customer service training by acknowledging that we learn a lot more from our experiences and our boss than we do from a formal class.

The amount of time you spend training is a lot less relevant than whether you align all three parts of the 70-20-10 model so they send the same message.

"70 percent" = learning from daily work

Most of what we learn comes from experience. While the 70 percent in 70-20-10 is not a hard rule, it’s a good reminder that our experiences play an important role in the learning process.

Your smartphone is an example.

You figured out how to use it without ever attending a class. Perhaps you asked a friend for a quick tip or watched a YouTube video, but you directed all of your own learning.

That’s the power of experience.

One of my recommendations to the customer service leader was to break the formal class into small chunks so employees could spend more time practicing their skills.

For example, Customer Service Foundations contains a 3 minute and 17 second video that explains a technique to easily start conversations with customers. I suggested the manager follow this plan:

1. Have employees watch the video on their own.

2. Ask employees to practice the technique on the job for one day.

3. Gather the group for a team discussion about their experience.

That plan would dramatically re-allocate how training time was spent:

• Formal training: 3 minutes, 17 seconds to watch the training video

• Experience: One day of on-the-job practice and experimentation

• Boss or mentor: 10 minutes for a team discussion

"20 percent" = learning from a boss or mentor

A lot of what we learn comes from a boss, mentor, or some other influential person. They impart information, challenge us to grow, and in the case of a boss, hold us accountable.

A credit union sent all new tellers to the corporate office for the same formal training program. After attending the program, an audit revealed tellers in some branches were following the training while tellers in other branches had developed shortcuts that made their jobs easier, but resulted in poor customer service and less accuracy.

What caused the difference?

The tellers who excelled after training had managers who set clear expectations, gave regular feedback, and reinforced what was learned in the formal class. The tellers who struggled had managers who were more hands-off or actively coached the tellers to disregard what they learned in training.

One way to fix this is with a workshop planning tool.

It's a simple way to get training participants, their managers, and the trainer all on the same page before training ever happens. Here's a short video that explains how it works:

"10 percent" = formal training

Formal training includes classes, eLearning, and other highly structured learning events. It also includes training videos, such as the ones I've made with LinkedIn Learning.

This is often where new skills or concepts are introduced for the first time. For many organizations, formal training is a great way to ensure employees learn a consistent way of doing things.

That was the case at the credit union.

Every teller attended the same class, taught by the same trainer. The curriculum was standardized, so each subsequent class received the same information, completed the same activities, and had to demonstrate the same skills to pass.

Yet the performance of tellers attending the training was widely variable.

That's the lesson I shared with the customer service leader who contacted me. Formal training is important, but it's more important to align coaching and on-the-job experience with what people learning in training.

Conclusion

The best training aligns all three elements of the 70-20-10 rule.

1. Formal training: introduce a new concept

2. Manager/mentor: reinforce the concept

3. Experience: practice the concept

Here’s the overall plan I recommended to the manager:

1. Have employees watch the training videos on their own, assigning one ~five minute video at a time. (Total time = 1 hour, 22 minutes.)

2. Ask employees to practice the skills highlighted in each video on the job.

3. Gather the team to discuss their experiences (total time = 1 hour).

This would shave two hours from the original training plan. You can find a more detailed explanation of how to best use training videos here.

LinkedIn Learning subscribers can learn more about the 70-20-10 rule from this short video.

Incorporating the 70-20-10 rule into learning design from Instructional Design: Adult Learners by Jeff Toister

7 ways leaders can model great customer service

I recently worked with two clients in the same industry.

There were a lot of similarities between the organizations. The business models were similar, they were roughly the same size, and their products were essentially the same.

Both even professed to be fans of the principles outlined in The Service Culture Handbook.

Yet one company was growing while the other struggled.

The difference was leadership. The CEO of the growing company consistently modeled the service culture he was trying to create. The other did not.

You have to walk the talk if you want your employees to be customer-focused. Here are seven ways to do it.

#1 Clarify your vision

Give employees a customer service vision to follow. This is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that gets everyone on the same page.

A vision gives employees clarity. They know the direction the company is headed in and understand how they contribute. The customer-focused CEO used this step-by-step guide to engage the entire organization to quickly create a compelling vision.

The other leader talked a lot about vision, but did nothing to craft a concrete statement that could be shared by everyone.

#2 Share illustrative stories

Help employees understand the right types of customer-focused behaviors by sharing illustrative stories. These should serve as real examples that help clarify the vision and give it further meaning.

The model CEO consistently shared illustrative stories about individuals in the company providing great service, and encouraged his leadership team to do the same. This helped employees better grasp what they were supposed to do.

The other CEO also shared stories on occasion, but these were usually stories about admired companies from the latest book he was reading. They did nothing to give employees more clarity about their own roles.

#3 Make aligned decisions

Use the customer service vision as a guide for strategic decisions. This reinforces the service culture and gives employees a consistent example to follow.

The customer-focused CEO constantly referred to the vision when making decisions or discussing important issues with his team. The vision served as a compass that constantly pointed the company in the right direction.

The other CEO tended to fire from the hip. Without a vision to guide him, his decisions were often unpredictable and inconsistent. Employees were often confused as a result.

#4 Empower the team

Give employees the tools, resources, and authority needed to do their job. Trust that most people inherently want to do great work and will work hard to produce results if they are enabled.

The CEO of the growing company recognized the importance of empowerment. He carefully selected employees for key assignments, gave them the necessary resources, and let them decide the best way to get it done.

The other CEO tended to hoard information and power. He was reluctant to trust other employees because he felt it took too much time and effort to make sure they were doing things the way he wanted them done.

#5 Hold people accountable

Follow-up with employees to make sure they are on the right path. Recognize great performance when it happens and coach people to get them back on track when needed.

The customer-focused CEO was big on accountability. He regularly checked in with his team and was readily available if someone needed help. Employees didn't hesitate to go to the CEO for help because they knew he was supportive.

The other CEO had more of a fire-and-forget style. He'd fire off an email asking an employee to do something and then forget he sent it. People didn’t take new initiatives seriously because they knew the initiative wouldn’t last long.

#6 Be responsive

Respond to people with the same urgency you expect employees to demonstrate with customers.

The model CEO responded to emails the same day. He quickly returned phone calls and texts, too. Employees knew they didn't have to wait long if they needed something.

The other CEO took days to respond to anything.

#7 Keep commitments

Do what you say you are going to do.

The customer-focused CEO kept his commitments to employees and customers, and was always on time for meetings. If he said he was going to do something, you could count on it getting done.

The other CEO had a reputation for being someone you couldn't count on. He was late all the time. Late to meetings and late on projects. Many things he promised to do never got done.

Conclusion

Take a moment to do an honest assessment.

• How many of the actions above do you regularly model?

• What can you do better as a leader?

• How else can you model your service culture?

I’ll share one bonus way you can model great service: serve customers. Don’t be afraid to join the frontlines and show your team how it’s done.

When I managed a contact center, I regularly took calls at a workstation on the contact center floor. I wanted my team to see and hear me soothe an angry customer or put a nervous caller at ease. It also gave me empathy for my agents because I had put myself in their position.

Your employees are watching you and learning from your actions. Model a customer-focused culture and you'll likely see employees do the same.

The data doesn't lie: Texans like In-N-Out better than Whataburger

Which fast food burger chain is better: Whataburger or In-N-Out?

The debate rages. Texans loudly proclaim their allegiance to Whataburger. Californians quickly tell you that In-N-Out is the best. Other states might feel caught in the middle.

So just for fun, I devised an objective test.

Let's forget polls run by food magazines that are more about state pride than real quality. I compared Whataburger and In-N-Out head-to-head in by using Yelp reviews for comparable locations in Texas.

That's right, I gave Whataburger a huge home field advantage.

Home field advantage didn't matter. In-N-Out won by a landslide. It was absolute, total domination. Frankly, I was surprised that it wasn’t even close.

Before you send me an angry email, keep in mind this wasn't my subjective opinion. People in Texas consistently rate In-N-Out much higher than Whataburger on Yelp.

About the Whataburger vs. In-N-Out test

In-N-Out Burger is a relative newcomer to Texas. The fast food hamburger chain was founded in Southern California in 1948 by Harry Snyder. It wasn't until 2011 that In-N-Out opened it's first Texas location.

Today, there are 40 In-N-Out locations in Texas.

Whataburger, by contrast, has Texas roots. Harmon Dobson opened the first location in Corpus Cristi, Texas in 1950. There are 697 Whataburger locations in Texas today.

To make the test fair, I mapped out each In-N-Out location in Texas, identified the closest Whataburger, and then compared the Yelp reviews for the two locations.

This was fairly easy to do. In some cases, there’s a Whataburger in the same parking lot as an In-N-Out. In most other cases, the nearest Whataburger is just down the street.

Consumers craving a fast food burger in these markets could easily choose between the two chains. The Yelp reviews tell us which they like better.

How In-N-Out beat Whataburger in a landslide

The test used data from Yelp reviews to evaluate three key categories:

1. Overall rating

2. Enthusiasm (total number of reviews)

3. Consistency

In-N-Out won all three tests handily.

Overall Rating

I compared the Yelp reviews for each of the 40 In-N-Out locations in Texas to the nearest Whataburger. All 40 In-N-Out locations had a higher Yelp rating than it's closest Whataburger competitor.

Yep. In-N-Out pulled off a clean sweep of Whataburger in Texas.

There was a wide gap in average rating between the two chains when you compare In-N-Out with nearby Whataburger locations:

Enthusiasm

I used the total number of reviews for each location as a proxy for customer enthusiasm. The higher the number of reviews (regardless of rating), the more enthusiastic the customer the base.

It's not a perfect metric. For instance, it doesn't control for the length of time a location has been open. Since Whataburger has a 61 year head start on In-N-Out (1950 vs. 2011), Whataburger would seem to have the advantage here.

It didn't matter. A whopping 37 out of 40 In-N-Out locations had more Yelp reviews than the nearest Whataburger.

In-N-Out averaged more than twice as many Yelp reviews per location:

Consistency

This last measure is about the entire chain, rather than just one location. The hallmark of a great business is you can rely upon a consistently good experience no matter where you go.

This is where In-N-Out really crushed it.

Every In-N-Out in Texas enjoys either a 3.5 or 4.0 average Yelp rating. Meanwhile, the nearest Whataburger locations ranged from 1.5 to 3.0.

Why are Whataburger's reviews worse than In-N-Out?

A lot goes into a Yelp review. Food taste and quality are important factors, but those aren’t the only things that customers care about.

Negative reviews for both chains tend to focus on three issues:

1. Wait time

2. Order accuracy

3. Friendliness

Wait time is particularly interesting.

Both Whataburger and In-N-Out prepare your meal to order, so the wait will always be longer than if you go to a chain that sells pre-made burgers stored under a heat lamp.

Strangely, the average wait at an In-N-Out is typically much longer because In-N-Out is usually a lot more crowded. (At least according to my anecdotal observations and personal experience as a fan of both chains.)

So why does Whataburger get dinged more than In-N-Out?

Because wait time is just as much about perception as it is actual elapsed time. Given the right set of circumstances, wait time can feel dramatically longer.

Negative Whataburger reviews that mentioned wait time often called out that the restaurant didn't seem very crowded. This caused customers to wonder why they were waiting so long.

In-N-Out customers, on the other hand, can see the long line of customers in front of them. They expect to wait because the chain is so popular.

Part of Whataburger's challenge is consistency. Wait time, accuracy, and even friendliness seem to be highly variable at locations with low Yelp ratings.

One explanation might be that Whataburger is no longer a family-owned company like In-N-Out. It’s not even a Texas company anymore. In 2019, the company was purchased by BDT Capital Partners, a company based in Chicago.

Meanwhile, In-N-Out is built on consistency. I profiled the company in my book, Getting Service Right, and found it has stayed focused on its core mission of offering quality, cleanliness, and courtesy throughout its entire history. It's still family run, doesn't franchise, and exclusive sells burgers, fries, and drinks.

What is the difference between a mission, vision, and values?

Updated: June 20, 2023

Employees are often confused about mission, vision, and value statements. Here are just a few of the questions I'm frequently asked:

• What's the difference?

• What are they for?

• Do we even need them all?

These questions came up a lot while I was doing research for The Service Culture Handbook. They’ve also come up while training thousands of employees on mission, vision, and values.

Here's an explanation of the three concepts along how other statements fit in.

What are a company’s mission, vision, and values?

An organization's mission, vision, and values help communicate something about the culture to employees. They should help guide each employees’ daily work and decision-making.

You can understand the difference by thinking what, why, and how.

• Mission: What the company does.

• Vision: Why the company does it.

• Values: How the companies does it.

Here’s a video explainer:

What is a mission statement?

A mission statement broadly describes what the organization does. They can range from specific to broad. Some are only truly understood by employees.

Clio, a company that makes legal practice management software, has a fairly descriptive mission statement:

Osprey, a company that makes backpacks and other equipment to help people enjoy the outdoors, has a more abstract mission:

Despite taking different approaches, both mission statements succinctly tell employees what the organization does. These short, simple statements make it easier for employees to use the mission to guide their daily work.

What is a vision statement?

A vision statement describes why an organization exists. It often refers to a larger goal the company is relentlessly pursuing.

TriMet operates the public transportation system in Portland, Oregon. It's vision statement reads:

Compared to mission statements and values, fewer organizations have a vision statement. That’s because the mission statement often speaks to the company's reason for existing.

For instance, the JetBlue Airways mission statement is "Inspire Humanity." The company describes this mission as the reason the airline was founded:

What is a purpose statement?

A purpose statement combines elements of a mission and vision into one single statement that broadly describe what the company does and why.

Purpose statements give employees one fewer statement to memorize. That can simplify things a bit and make the purpose easier to follow.

Target’s purpose statement abstractly describes what it does (sells goods for everyday life) and how it tries to do it (helping families discover joy).

Value Statements

An organization’s values describe how its employees do business. They serve as guidelines for the types of behaviors that should be promoted and encouraged.

Rackspace, a company that provides cloud-based computer networks, shares explanations for each of its five core values to provide more context:

• Excellence. We are an accountable, disciplined, high-performing company with proven results.

• Customer-driven. We are proactive, collaborative and committed to success for our customers.

• Expertise. Rackers are passionate learners who are embedded in our customers’ businesses to provide unbiased solutions.

• Agility. We adopt new technologies and evolve services to meet customers where they are in their journey.

• Compassion. We’re one team doing the right thing for our customers, communities and each other.

Some companies, like Squarespace, put their values in priority order:

1. Be the customer.

2. Design is not a luxury.

3. Build the ideal.

4. Learn fast, act fast.

5. Protect creativity.

6. Simplify.

Where do other statements fit in?

Companies often have a myriad of other statements on top of their mission, vision, and values. These include mottos, slogans, and brand promises.

An informal LinkedIn poll revealed that nearly half of organizations have four or more statements that are used to guide employee behavior. Having too many statements for employees to remember can get confusing.

Whenever possible, it helps to simplify.

Regular readers know I often refer to a company's customer service vision statement, which is a shared definition of outstanding service that gets everyone on the same page.

In customer-focused organizations, the mission does double duty as the customer service vision, eliminating the need for a separate statement.

For example, JetBlue's Inspire Humanity mission tells employees what the company does (albeit very abstractly) and how they should treat customers.

Many companies have a separate brand promise or marketing slogan. That's okay, as long as the external statements are still aligned with the company's mission, vision, or values.

The Armstrong Garden Centers brand promise is "Gardening without Guesswork." This is a succinct and very natural external version of the company's mission statement:

We strive to take the guesswork out of gardening by providing horticultural expertise, exceptional service, and the best quality plants and products. We are passionate gardeners cultivating a welcoming environment for all to learn and be inspired.

Conclusion

Fewer statements are better than more statements. Simplify whenever possible. You want to provide clarity, not confusion.

Do you need help writing a mission, vision, or values? Here are some resources to help:

1. Write your mission: My free step-by-step guide

2. Build a service culture: The Service Culture Handbook

How a simple marketing strategy helps Buc-ee's dominate the competition

Note: The following is an excerpt from The Guaranteed Customer Experience. You can download Chapter One to read the rest of the story about Buc-ee’s.

---

Imagine driving cross-country on a road trip.

You need gas, and you need to use the restroom. Choosing a place to stop is a big decision. Gas stations can be miles apart. The station you see on the horizon probably has gas, but there's no guarantee they’ll have a clean restroom. Do you need to stop now, or do you have enough fuel to keep going until the next one?

You size up each gas station’s convenience store you pass as your level of urgency increases. Some are rejected at first glance for being too scary. You slow to scrutinize others. Will the restroom be open or out-of-order? Will there be a line? Will it be clean?!

Your car's gas gauge is hovering near "E," while your own tank is dangerously close to "F." Decision time. Where will you stop?

You're not alone in this experience. A study from the travel app GasBuddy found that 40 percent of Americans worry about finding a clean restroom on a road trip.

Buc-ee's, a chain of gas station convenience stores located primarily in Texas, has developed a devoted customer base by solving this problem.

Driving through Texas, you're likely to encounter any number of humorous billboards advertising the nearest Buc-ee's location:

Image courtesy of Lou Congelio, Acme Fish.

I once counted 19 billboards on a stretch of highway. The messages often repeat the same promise that Buc-ee’s has clean restrooms.

Image courtesy of Lou Congelio, Acme Fish.

The billboards speak clearly to customers on the go who desperately have to go. They demonstrate an understanding of this common road trip problem and promise that Buc-ee's will solve it.

Many travelers will drive past other gas stations to get to a Buc-ee's, because Buc-ee's provides an assurance that other brands don’t.

This billboard is a welcome sight to a traveler with an urgent need.

Your heart might skip a beat when you pull into a Buc-ee's for the first time. This place is huge!

There’s a steady stream of cars in the parking lot, but you’ll still find plenty of parking and gas pumps. Semi-trailer trucks are not allowed, which creates a bit more space than the typical travel stop.

The restrooms are clearly visible from the front entrance, but you might still worry. Will there be a long line? Or worse, will it be a mess?

Buc-ee's does not disappoint. 8.3 million ratings of fuel and convenience retailers on the GasBuddy travel app rated the restrooms at Buc-ee's as the best in America. The restrooms at each location are unbelievably plentiful and clean, and each is well-stocked with paper and soap. Many are downright enormous.

Clean restrooms attract customers, but that's not all Buc-ee's has to offer.

It has all the items you'd expect to see in a convenience store—such as soda, candy, and chips—though on a much larger scale.

Most convenience stores are lucky to have one Icee machine that barely works some of the time. There are four Icee machines at the Buc-ee’s in Luling, Texas. Each is in perfect working condition.

There are also things you wouldn’t expect to find in a typical convenience store. Larger Buc-ee's locations have a barbecue counter where employees make hot sandwiches to order.

There's also an enormous display of house-made beef jerky and candy past the counter. Keep walking, and you'll come to a large section selling Texas-themed gifts and Buc-ee's apparel.

I once stopped at the Buc-ee's in Luling, Texas, to get a dog leash. My wife and I were on a road trip, and I had accidentally left our dog's leash at my mother-in-law's house in Houston. "Let's stop at Buc-ee's," I said. "I bet they have dog leashes." Sure enough, they did.

The size of the store and the sheer number of customers can intimidate first-time visitors, but Buc-ee's is surprisingly convenient. There are multiple cash register lines open with friendly cashiers ready and waiting to serve you.

Buc-ee's draws large crowds. Its locations average nearly four times as many customers as a typical convenience store.

Imagine attracting four times more customers to your business than your competition. What would cause so many customers to give you a try and, once they did, keep coming back? The secret is customer experience.

Buc-ee's wins customers from competing brands by consistently providing restrooms that are far superior to anyone else's. It averages a four-star rating on Yelp across all locations, with a whopping 46 percent of those reviews mentioning the restrooms.

Cody Esser, who writes the Impulsive Traveler Guy blog, traveled to 33 Buc-ee's locations over the course of three days in 2018. He reported that not a single restroom at any of those locations was dirty. I polled family and friends in Texas, asking what they love about Buc-ee's. Nearly everyone mentioned the clean restrooms.

Of course, the Buc-ee's experience is more than just clean restrooms. It keeps customers coming back with stores that are bigger and have a broader selection of items than a typical gas station convenience store.

Outside the Buc-ee’s in Luling, Texas.

My friend Robin summarized the Buc-ee's experience nicely: "I love that you can get bakery items, fresh-made candy, wonderful hot sandwiches, that they have a gift shop, and also have clean bathrooms! They have everything a traveler could ever want."

Conclusion

The challenge for any business is to figure out exactly what problem it can consistently solve better than the competition. It has to be something that customers value so customers choose you over other options.

You can download Chapter One from The Guaranteed Customer Experience to read the rest of the story and learn how to identify the problem your customer is trying to solve.

Lessons from the Overlook: The importance of leverage

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.

Finding a plumber for The Overlook is a struggle.

We've had a slight leak under the kitchen sink for two months. There's just one reliable plumber in town, and he's busy.

Electricians are equally scarce. It took six weeks for the one recommended electrician to fix a light. Another three months for him to complete the repair when the light still wasn't working.

Finding a reliable, competent handyperson is next to impossible. We’ve gone through several who aren’t reliable, aren’t competent, or both. It recently took three months to get a gate fixed.

These experiences prove customers don't always have the clout they think they'd do. The Overlook is in a remote mountain town where having just one option for a variety of services means you can't easily take your business somewhere else.

The uncomfortable reality is great customer service often requires leverage.

All this snow melted before we could get the light above the barn doors fixed.

What is customer service leverage?

Leverage is power. In customer service, it's the power to set the terms of the relationship, such as when a service will be performed, how much it will cost, and whether you have to be nice.

In May 2021, grocers and restaurants struggled to get food because their suppliers faced labor shortages, scarce supplies, and soaring transportation costs. The largest customers, such as Walmart and Sysco, used their leverage to get more deliveries on-time.

Culturally, people assume the customer always has the power (at least in the United States). We live by the terribly misguided and historically inaccurate phrase, "The customer is always right."

The assumption behind this belief system is a customer can take their business to an eager competitor at any time if they aren't treated right. Tell that to the two HVAC repair companies near The Overlook. One of them is owned by a jerk who actively cheats customers, which keeps the other company too busy to respond quickly.

There's another issue with the idea that customers always have leverage: customers often interact with an employee, not the business owner.

An angry customer who threatens to never come back might be a gift to the offending employee. The employee rids themselves of a person they find annoying and unpleasant when an angry customer storms off. Meanwhile, the employee's pay won't be different and they won't suffer a change in job security (at least not in the short term).

How can leverage affect customer service?

Two broad trends are likely to happen when customers lack leverage. The first is a short-term impact, while the other is more long-term.

In the short-term, service suffers.

Customers have to pay more for less. Cable companies had an iron grip on our televisions for years, causing customers to pay steadily increasing fees.

Customers begrudgingly accept poor service. Many travelers have vowed never to fly a certain airline, until they realize that airline offers the only low-cost, direct flights to their destination.

There's also a downstream affect. Many cabins that compete with The Overlook have difficulty keeping up with their maintenance because qualified plumbers, electricians, and handypeople are so scarce. This creates a poor experience for their guests.

In the long-term, the market can change.

Customers alter their habits. People watch far less live television than they did just a few years ago, making streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Prime a viable alternative to traditional cable.

Competitors eventually enter the market. Southwest Airlines was created to challenge legacy carriers by offering low fares for convenient flights.

Customers might leave the market altogether. We've noticed an uptick in vacation rental cabins for sale in Idyllwild, in part because owners have struggled to keep up.

How can customers overcome a lack of leverage?

We've employed two strategies at The Overlook to overcome our lack of leverage. The first is to build relationships. You can get a lot more done when you're nice.

Normally, we'd get pretty upset if a plumber didn't show up. In this case, we continue to be polite and friendly, knowing the plumber will take care of the leak eventually. Because we're patient now, we also know from past experience that he'll come out right away if we had an emergency.

The other tactic we use is to be easy to do business with. We try to make make having us as a customer advantageous for service providers.

For example, we've started using a contractor to do small jobs, like fix our gate. He normally does much larger projects, such as home remodels, but he's willing to work with us because we're flexible.

Contractors often have small gaps in their workday while waiting for supplies to arrive at the job site or some other delay. A small job at The Overlook allows the contractor to keep his crew busy for a few hours on a day when he'd normally have to send people home early.

So having us as a customer creates an advantage for the contractor.

The lesson is you sometimes have to find your own leverage in a customer service relationship. For us, we’ve often had to put pride aside and re-focus on what matters most: ensuring our guests have a great experience.

Conclusion

Think about situations where suppliers and service providers have leverage over you or your business. What can you do to get a better result?

• Will you pay more?

• Are you willing to accept less?

• Can you change your habits?

• Can you build a better relationship?

• What incentives can you give them?

Yes, it's frustrating when we don't get great service. Yet it's sometimes the reality. What we do next is up to us.

For more unexpected customer service lessons, check out my book, Getting Service Right: Overcoming the hidden obstacles to outstanding customer service.

Five reasons why we struggle to achieve our goals

I talk to a lot of people who are trying to improve customer service.

It's a diverse group, including CEOs, executives, middle managers, team leads, and frontline employees. Their challenges are individual, but they all struggle.

Many have received conflicting advice. It's hard to know where to start.

Fortunately, I've done the research for you. Peter Gollwitzer, a professor in the Psychology Department at New York University, gave me a treasure trove of studies on achieving goals.

I've combined them with my own experience talking to thousands of customer service professionals.

Here are the top five reasons why we don't achieve our goals (and what you can do about it.)

Reason #1: Your goals are too vague

An analysis of 422 scientific studies involving 82,107 participants found that having a clear goal accounted for 28 percent of success.

Let's do a demonstration. Grab your phone and open up the maps app. Ask the app to give you directions to a generic restaurant.

Not a specific place. A generic restaurant.

Obviously, that doesn't work. The app even makes helpful suggestions in an attempt to get you to make a decision.

We face the same problem when it comes to achieving goals—it's impossible to get started without a specific destination.

The fix is simple: set concrete goals.

Imagine shipping delays are your biggest source of customer complaints. Your on-time rate is 85 percent, which means 15 out of 100 orders are late. Process 1,000 orders per day and you're getting 150 daily complaints.

A goal to "reduce complaints" is too squishy.

Order delivery is the real problem in this scenario. A more specific goal, such as "reduce late deliveries by 50 percent in 30 days" would make it much easier to get started and track your progress.

Need help crafting specific goals? Trying using this guide.

Reason #2: Not starting

It’s exhilarating to set a challenging goal. That’s as far as many people get. Many never get started making progress toward achieving it.

Sometimes, we tell ourselves we're too busy.

One executive created a set of ambitious goals at an executive retreat. She promptly set her goals aside the moment she returned to the office. "We have a lot going on right now," she told me. "We're just trying to catch up."

Other times, we just forget.

A customer service rep attended a workshop on serving angry customers. That was a Thursday. He didn't encounter an upset customer until the following Monday, when his old behaviors instinctively kicked in and the lessons learned in training were lost.

The solution is to create a specific plan to get started.

One study on goal completion discovered that just 22 percent of participants completed a difficult goal when they did not have a plan. That number rose to 62 percent when participants created an action plan.

Reason #3: You get derailed

It's hard to block out distractions when you're trying to achieve a goal. Old habits are hard to break. Conflicts arise between new goals and existing routines.

A CEO delegated a service culture initiative to his leadership team. They got started with a lot of fanfare, but the CEO never checked in on them.

Instead, he kept piling on new projects and assignments. The team prioritized the new work and the service culture initiative was soon set aside.

It's not just a lack of checking in that derails our project. Customer service professionals are overly tired and distracted.

The solution is to identify your own blindspots and solve for them ahead of time.

For example, I do my best writing in the morning, but I know checking email and social media will distract me. So I start the day by writing and don't check messages until mid-morning.

Reason #4: You don't recognize a bad plan

Some plans are destined to fail. And when that realization sets in, many of us instinctively stick with the plan.

One executive lamented about how much time his team had spent on a failed initiative. He was determined to press on, even though it wasn't working.

He struggled to get over the time and effort already spent.

A customer service manager invested in new technology for her team. The technology made things worse, not better. The manager stuck with it anyway because she felt she had to justify the expense.

Don't be afraid to reset when you see your plan isn't working. That's why I recommend doing regular business reviews.

Reason #5: You get overextended

We're overwhelmed with initiatives, projects, and to-do items. More gets added constantly. Interruptions never end.

Take a look at your own to-do list. Ask yourself these questions:

• What will actually get done today?

• How many items get bumped or ignored?

• How many items will get added to the list?

For many of us, this simple analysis makes it clear why we fail. We're trying to do too much.

One executive created a host of committees to improve customer service. There was a culture committee, a customer obsession committee, an operational excellence committee, and an employee engagement committee.

Nobody knew exactly where one committee started and the other ended. They didn't have clear goals, but they did have endless meetings.

Nothing got done.

Focusing on one thing at a time is the counterintuitive solution to getting more done. One client of mine, Clio, won an award for best contact center culture by relentlessly focusing on one step at a time. Leaders would not move on to the next initiative until the last initiative was completed.

Conclusion

We can achieve more goals. Set your next customer service initiative up for success by addressing these questions:

1. What is the goal?

2. What is my plan to achieve it?

3. How can I make the goal easier to achieve?

4. When will I review my plan?

5. Why is this goal a priority?

Why strict procedures are the key to a great customer experience

I've spent a lot of time at the post office lately and it's fascinating.

My latest book came out in March, which means I've sent a lot of books to people I interviewed or who endorsed the book. The books require a special type of discounted postage called media mail, so I have to go to the counter to buy it from a postal clerk.

There are three clerks who regularly work in my local post office. All three have a different way of processing a media mail postage request, yet all the books arrive safely to their destination.

Why does this matter?

One of the clerks processes the transaction much faster than the other two. This makes the line go faster. (There's always a line.)

Put another way, two of the clerks take too long. They add unnecessary steps to the procedure. Taking an extra minute per transaction makes the line grow. More people have to wait for more time as a result.

Each visit to the post office is a reminder of a customer experience lesson that's often overlooked. Strict procedures are essential to great experiences.

Here's why.

Great experiences are consistent

Customers trust brands, products, and services that they can count on. We tend to take consistency for granted, because it's a little boring, but we'd surely notice if it wasn't there.

Picture a contact center where luck of the draw determined which agent you got on the phone. One agent could solve your problem in just five minutes, while another agent would require 30 minutes to get to the bottom of the same issue.

Imagine going to a Starbucks where each barista made your latte "their way." Some would taste good, others wouldn't. No two would be the same.

What if warehouse workers each had their own method for packing fragile items? Some shipments would survive the journey, others wouldn't. Extra padding adds extra weight, which means some workers would unnecessarily increase shipping costs without preventing any more damage.

All of these scenarios create waste, unhappy customers, and inconsistent experiences.

Customer-focused companies are incredibly consistent. Their products unfailingly work. Their services are dependable.

Think about that the next time you order something from Amazon. The company can deliver a dizzying array of items to your doorstep with lightening speed because every employee is taught to follow a strict set of procedures.

Can employees ever improvise?

Absolutely! There are many situations where an employee should add their own flair, make an adjustment, or deviate from a procedure entirely.

The secret is knowing when to improvise.

Hotel housekeepers neatly fold towels as part of the room cleaning procedure. Some add their own flair by folding some of the towels into fun animals.

A procedure can sometimes be improved. That's what the fast postal clerk did. She identified an unnecessary step and eliminated it, saving several seconds per transaction.

There are a few cases when the normal procedure doesn’t apply.

A medical device manufacturer needed to get a specific item to a hospital for a patient having surgery the next day. The normal ordering procedure wouldn’t get the device to the hospital in time, so a customer service rep decided to improvise. She called a nearby competing hospital, located the correct device, and arranged to have it delivered just in time for the patient’s life-saving surgery.

Many customer-focused companies even have procedures for handling special requests or unusual situations. There's a strict latte recipe at Starbucks, but the barista will customize a drink to your liking. You can even make changes to a standard item when ordering via the Starbucks app.

(Side note: some customers have gone way too far with their customization requests. It’s become an issue.)

People mistakenly equate empowerment with giving employees the authority to do whatever they want. That's not really the definition.

The real definition of empowerment is enabling employees to deliver outstanding service to their customers. This includes:

• Resources necessary to get the job done.

• Procedures that represent best practices.

• Authority to do what’s right or deviate from procedures when needed.

How do you get employees to follow procedures?

Just having strict procedures isn't enough. All employees need to follow them to ensure consistency.

The first step is to make sure there is a documented procedure. You can use this guide to write procedures your employees will love.

Next, identify potential obstacles.

• Are employees aware of the procedure?

• Can they access the procedure quickly and easily?

• Do they have the necessary tools and resources?

A hotel received a number of complaints about room cleanliness. A quick investigation revealed that employees weren't following the standard cleaning procedure because they lacked the needed cleaning supplies.

Finally, monitor procedures to make sure they are being followed.

Major League Baseball recently investigated allegations that its baseballs are "juiced," meaning they fly farther than normal. It turned out to be true. The baseballs are hand-sewn, and the balls had abnormal variations in seam height, causing some baseballs to fly farther than others.

That meant a fan's chance of seeing a home run had just as much to do with who made the ball as who was pitching and who was batting.

It turned out the problem had been happening for several years. The investigation, while enlightening, should have happened far sooner.

Take Action

Procedures aren't a one-way street. Customer-focused leaders spend a lot of time talking about procedures with their team.

• Why is this procedure important?

• What are the consequences of not consistently following the procedure?

• What obstacles prevent procedures from being followed?

• When does it make sense to not follow the procedure?

• How can we do things even better?

You can learn more about creating a consistent customer experience from my book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience. Download the first chapter to learn about a gas station convenience store that dominates the competition because it does one simple thing consistently.

15 ways to handle a huge surge in contact volume

Two contact center leaders recently contacted me about the same issue. Their contact center was getting overwhelmed with volume.

Each faced multiple risks and worries.

• Long wait times increased complaints.

• Irritated customers were at risk of leaving.

• Overwhelmed contact center agents were at risk of quitting.

Staffing alone isn't the solution. It's hard to find and train qualified agents fast enough. More immediate actions are needed.

One manager faced the added challenge of getting executive support. It's tough to handle the surge if you don't have the authority to hire more agents or improve efficiency.

I've been there as a contact center manager. It's not fun.

Here is the advice I shared with the two leaders. It's sorted into immediate, short, and long-term actions. Each tactic has proven to be effective.

Immediate Actions

There are a few things that you can do right now to reduce your queues. These actions can make a significant dent in your volume. Some are counterintuitive, but trust me, they work.

#1 Stop showing agents the queue

Most contact centers let agents know how many customers are waiting. The idea is to let agents know when they need to work a little faster or put off taking a break.

What it actually does is generate more contact volume.

Agents spend less time calmling upset customers when they're in a hurry. Unfortunately, upset customers are more judgmental and less open to solutions. This makes calls take longer.

Listening skills are also degraded when we're in a rush. Poor listening means missed opportunities to fully solve problems and prevent future calls.

One client implemented this tactic, and the results were immediate:

#2 Focus agents on first contact resolution (FCR)

Stop showing real-time productivity data to agents, including average handle time, emails per hour, and chats per hour. Ask agents to focus on fully solving each customer's problem and preventing that customer from having to make a second contact.

Repeat contacts drive a lot of volume. One analysis I did showed that a contact center with an 80 percent FCR could get 23 percent of its call volume from repeat calls!

You don't have to create a convoluted FCR measurement. Just ask agents to forget about handle time and instead focus on politely and efficiently serving each customer. Contact center expert, Myra Golden, has some great call control tips that can help.

Now here's the strange thing. Contact centers that focus on FCR don't see an increase in handle time.

#3 Focus agents on one channel at a time

Small contact centers often have agents respond to emails in between phone calls. This causes both calls and emails to take longer, and agents are more likely to make mistakes.

Mistakes create additional contacts.

I've worked with multiple contact centers to run an experiment. Agents were separated into phone and email teams, and each team focused exclusively on that channel. In all cases, productivity and quality both went up.

You can still move agents between channels as needed. Just keep them focused on one channel at a time.

#4 Go into emergency mode

Do whatever you can to clear your queues in the short-term. Customers tend to contact companies multiple times when they are waiting, which creates a multiplier effect for your queue.

Here are a few things you can do:

1. Give your team extra hours.

2. Ask for help from other departments if feasible.

3. Prioritize live channels (phone, chat) over messaging (email, sms).

#5 Proactively update customers

Companies should generally respond to email within one hour. That’s hard to do if you prioritize live channels (see #4 above). When volumes soar, it's a good idea to share multiple messages to let customers know wait times are abnormally long.

This will reduce repeat contacts and avoid some contacts entirely.

For email and web tickets, set an autoresponder to let people know there's an unusually long response time. The message can also give customers additional options, including self-service and calling.

Resetting expectations will likely prevent far more contacts than it will cause.

Here are a few more ideas:

• Update your hold message.

• Add a banner to the contact or support page on your website.

• Post updates to your social media.

You can even create a web page that shows the status of various issues. For instance, my website is powered by Squarespace. Anytime something gets wonky, I first check status.squarespace.com for updates.

#6 Adjust schedules

It’s easy to lose sight of the basics in the heat of the moment. Make sure you've adjusted your schedule to meet demand.

Many small contact centers keep consistent schedules all year. It gives agents some stability, but it can also cause problems over time.

One client would get hammered with calls on Monday morning and then have agents sitting idle on Wednesday afternoon. Updating the schedule allowed the contact center to redistribute staffing levels to eliminate the queue without cutting hours.

Short-term Actions

The immediate actions above can have a dramatic impact on your queue. But sometimes volume surges continue. Here are a few more actions you can take to get ahead.

#7 Find the root cause

There’s a good chance a few specific things are driving a lot of your volume. Perhaps a defective product is frustrating customers, a marketing campaign is going bonkers, or world events are wrecking havoc on your supply chain.

Gather hard data when possible. That turns "we're getting a lot of calls" into "50 percent of our extra call volume is related to this confusing feature on our new product."

Hard data can get other departments to act.

#8 Fix self-service

Customers often try to solve simple problems on their own before contacting customer service. Look for fast fixes to self-service if your contact volume is driven by a lot of simple issues.

One counterintuitive solution is to make it easier for customers to contact a live agent. Many companies try to hide their contact information, but studies show customers feel more confident trying self-service if they know they can quickly contact someone to get help.

Another fix is to make answers easier to find.

For example, Dollar Shave Club found that 40 percent of its customer email volume could have been handled via self-service. It used a feature in its Zendesk customer service software called Answer Bot that made it easier for customers to locate self-help articles.

This small change prevented 5,000 emails per month.

#9 Document the cost

You can get more support from your boss or other departments by connecting high contact volumes and long wait times to financial metrics. Here are just a few things to consider:

• Are you losing agents because of high volume?

• Are you losing customers because of the volume?

• Are your goodwill costs (e.g. extra discounts, etc.) going up?

• Are your survey scores being hurt by high volumes?

• Are your servicing costs (overtime, outsourcing, etc.) going up?

Customer experience legend, Jeanne Bliss, shares some great advice for showing executives the money in this entertaining interview.

#10 Offer callbacks

Consider offering a callback service, such as Fonolo. These services allow customers to request a callback when an agent is available. You can even configure it so customers can schedule a callback at a later time.

Check out my interview with Fonolo CEO, Shai Berger, who explains how callback services can smooth out your queues.

#11 Reduce perceived wait time

We know that customers tend to get more aggravated the longer they wait, and aggravated customers are harder to serve. That makes contacts take longer.

You can soothe customers by making the wait seem shorter.

For instance, a looping hold message reinforces the feeling that you've been waiting on hold for a long time. You can make the wait seem shorter by changing your hold message to intersperse helpful updates with funny reminders or catchy music.

Here's a list of ways to reduce wait time perception.

#12 Hire temporary agents

Some contact centers can easily separate simple and challenging contacts. Some use a tiered support system. Others find email is easier for beginners because they can spend more time researching the answer, use templates to help craft a response, and have an experienced colleague check their work before sending.

This is a perfect opportunity to hire seasonal or temporary agents. You can quickly train them to focus on a few basic contacts, freeing up the rest of your team to focus on more complicated issues.

Long-term Actions

Contact centers eventually have to adjust to the new normal if high contact volumes persist. Here are a few long-term actions that can help.

#13 Start recruiting now

Hiring takes a long time. It can take several weeks to post a job, screen applicants, interview candidates, and make someone an offer.

Get ahead of the curve by starting your recruiting process now, even if you don't have any openings. Build a roster of interested candidates you can hire immediately once you get the green light to add agents.

#14 Improve new hire training

The average contact center agent takes 12 weeks to fully train. Years ago, I discovered a method to cut that time in half while getting better agent performance.

The secret is using scenario-based training.

Most contact centers train each agent skill independently. So agents learn how to use various software programs, how to interact with customers, product knowledge, and company procedures all as separate modules. But that's not how agents actually use those skills.

With scenario-based training, agents learn the job by following realistic scenarios. Scenarios start simple and get progressively more complicated, which reinforces core skills such as using software systems, customer service, and using the knowledge base to find answers.

The result is much faster training with better skill retention and on-the-job performance.

#15 Outsource some volume

Partnering with an outsourced contact center is one of the best ways to give your customer service team added flexibility. You can handle more volume spikes, ramp up faster, and even wind down programs more quickly.

Two of my favorites are Transparent BPO and Callzilla. Both are finalists for ICMI's 2021 best contact center outsourcer award.

Need More Help?

A huge spike in volume can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to tackle it alone.

Find someone to help you out or just give you a fresh perspective. Reach out to trusted colleagues, advisors, and mentors. And you can always contact me.