In anticipation of celebrating the holidays with my family and friends, I will not be publishing my posts until after the New Year. So, for now, as you move onward and upward in the New Year, I wish all of you, your family, and your friends GREAT health, happiness, success, and prosperity. May your Holiday Celebration and New Year be GREAT out there!
English writer Samuel Johnson said, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed”. So, I encourage you to remind yourself and your colleagues every day about each one of these fifteen QUI QUOTES about leadership and employee engagement.
ASSETS
Your employees are not your most important assets. It is about how your employees FEEL about you and your company. As a leader, don’t be just good to your employees. Be GREAT out there!
BUSINESS LEADERS FORBIDDEN PHRASE: “We’ve always done it that way.”
Your employees would say to themselves, “Well, if you’ve already done it that way, then we’ll go somewhere else that pays more,” or “We’ll go somewhere else where they communicate, support, and motivate us,” or “We’ll go somewhere else where they recognize and appreciate us for our team and individual achievements, accomplishments, or personalized acts of customer service.” Instead of saying, “We’ve always done it that way”, do better. Don’t just be good. Be GREAT out there!
EMOTIONAL CONNECTION
To earn employee loyalty, don’t get inside their heads. Get inside their hearts. Create an emotional connection. The more emotional the connections, the more memorable the experiences, and the more loyal the employees are.
FIND KEEP
Your business success is not dependent on how many candidates you find. It’s all about how many employees you keep.
FIRST BEST
First, be the best for your employees. Then, you will be first among your competitors. Ultimately, your employees will exceed customer expectations. Do not take for granted the immense impact a concerned, vital group of employees can do to enhance the image and success of your business. Whether it is through recognition programs or your visible management, your employees must sense and believe in your conviction that they are your competitive edge – the reason why customers will return to your business.
HEARTS
If you want to win the hearts of your customers, you, first, must win the hearts of your employees.
INVESTMENT
Your employee should be seen as a long-term investment in your business and not as a short-term labor expense.
KEEP FIND
Work as hard to keep your employees as much as you can to find new ones.
LOYALTY
Customer loyalty to your company starts with company loyalty to your people. Focus as much on creating a GREAT experience for your people and they will do the same for your customers and you will earn the loyalty of both. Soon, without a focus on profits, profits will grow. Everyone will be enriched, your people, your customers, and you and your business, will be enriched, emotionally and financially.
MAGNIFICENTLY BORING TO CARE
Be Magnificently Boring to CARE for your people. Consistently CARE so repetitively that you feel it is boring, but to your people, you are Magnificent! Your people have an emotional connection. The more emotional the connections, the more memorable the experiences, and the more loyal your people are. Your loyal people will repeatedly return to work, be more productive, and rave to others on social media. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds relationships. Relationships build loyalty. Loyalty builds your business. CARE Magnificently!
PASSION
Work because you HAVE TO is a job. Work because you WANT TO is a passion. Find your passion.
Select for passion over performance. Working because someone HAS TO is a job. Working because someone WANTS TO is a passion. Find their passion.
Your business has a mission statement. As a leader, you should have a passion statement. The best managers are passionate about what they do. Frankly, if you are not passionate about what you do for your people, you have no right to manage others. Be sure to express your passion for your people.
PAYCHECK
“If the only thing your employees get out of their job is a paycheck, you, as leaders, have failed”. Emotional remuneration is just as important to the employee’s well-being as much as it is to their financial health. Employees don’t care much about how big their pay is. They only care about how big you care about them. So, CARE BIG!
PEOPLE FIRST
Instead of focusing on “Profits over People”, envision “People First” as the solid foundation for everlasting business success. With a “People First” culture, no longer are people taking second or third seats to profits or customers. Your people’s emotional well-being would take priority over your business’s financial health.
POLICY
If you’re making frequent policy exceptions, then employee perception does not match company promises. It’s poor policy. Fix it.
RELATIONSHIPS
Relationship capital is the only real currency of value to grow your business. So, when it comes to your people and your business, Think RELATIONSHIPS or Go Broke. Literally.
RESPONSIBILITY
The responsibility of business leaders is not to develop the business. It’s to develop their people.
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Whatever your title or position, be a servant leader who will CARE for your people first.
CARE for each member of the team:
COMMUNICATE openly, transparently, interactively, frequently, and continuously any information that your people need and want to know. Listen empathetically to the people’s concerns, questions, and complaints. Express compassion with your recommendations and encouragement.
APPRECIATE the important roles and responsibilities of your people.
RECOGNIZE and offer accolades for team and individual accomplishments and acts of service.
EMPOWER people to make the right decisions for themselves, their colleagues, and others.
When you CARE, your people will feel respected, appreciated, and valued. With your support and encouragement, you will inspire and empower them to develop themselves and engage others. Soon, everyone’s experiences and, ultimately, their lives, will be enriched.
TWO QUESTIONS
Whatever your title or position, be a servant leader. Instead of asking your people, “What can you do for me and my business?”, ask your people two questions:
“What do you think?”
“How can I help?”
When you ask, respond empathetically, and act promptly to take appropriate corrective action, your people will feel respected, appreciated, and valued. With your support, encouragement, and action, you will inspire and empower them to develop themselves and engage others. Soon, everyone’s experiences and, ultimately, their lives, will be enriched.
If you think my 15 QUI QUOTES on leadership and employee engagement are a little more than I reminded you, you’re right. GREAT leadership is not top-down, one-way, communication to employees. Whatever your title or position, GREAT leadership is servant leadership. Don’t just lead your employees. Don’t treat your employees as they expect to be treated. And don’t treat your employees as YOU expect to be treated. Instead, treat your people a little better than they expect to be treated. Be a servant leader to CARE for your people. When it comes to leadership, don’t just lead them to be good. Be a servant leader to CARE for your people and be GREAT out there!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Today, for those of us in or from the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving. So I want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation and gratitude for the many who helped me as I recover.
Some of you may know that I suffered a stroke in April 2021. When I retired, I was planning to be a customer CARE speaker and then everything went south. I have slurred speech and a dead right side. Aside from that, I am very healthy and hope to fully recover soon. Until then, I have been sequestered at home since being sidelined with a wheelchair.
Since my stroke, I’ve gone from Mr. “Let’s be GREAT out there!” as resort GM to Mr. Invisible. Whenever I fully recover, I hope to have some semblance of visibility to potential business leaders. So, I was hoping for my comeback.
To those who have read and emoji or verbally acknowledged my blog posts, thank you. I appreciate you all.
And I very much appreciate those of you who have reshared my posts. Thank you so much.
May your Thanksgiving celebration or your weekend be GREAT out there!
Many CX professionals have advocated CX as strategies such as AI, online, self-service, telephone, and face-to-face customer support, customer journey mapping, the Peak End Rule, NPS, CSAT, CES, or other CX metrics, and many innovative technologies to improvetheir customers’ experiences.
And they’ve done it so often for so long that “CX” has been the traditional term of many business professionals to explain customer experience management. But no more. NOW is our time for a CX Revolution!
To paraphrase John DiJulius’ battle cry, it’s time for a CX Revolution! Let’s be revolutionary to improve the customer experience. This revolution “is a radical overthrow of conventional business mentality, designed to transform what customers and employees experience.” John DiJulius.
For starters, customer experience or CX is about the customers’ emotional value of their experiences. Customer experience management or CXM is how businesses prioritize the best product, service, technology, or CX strategy of their business experience to deliver the best emotional value in their customers’ experiences.
Secondly, be Magnificently Boring to CARE! Consistently CARE (Communicate. Acknowledge. Respond. Enrich) for your customers so repetitively that you feel it is boring, but to every customer, at that moment, you are Magnificent! Consistency builds trust. Trust builds relationships. Relationships build loyalty. Loyalty builds your business. CARE Magnificently!
Saving the best for last, don’t just deliver to your people top-down, one-way, “one and done” customer service training. Instead, educate your people interactively, frequently, and continuously at Customer CARE University with you as mentors and coaches at your business. And, yes, educate everyone. Don’t just educate customer CARE representatives. Educate the people in the business who don’t need to CARE for their customers and develop them to let them CARE for the people who do. Soon, everyone, your people, your customers, and you and your business, will be enriched, emotionally and financially.
So, prepared with your three QUI Takeaways, proclaim to your people that
“NOW is the time for a CX Revolution! Let’s not just serve to sell to our customers. And let’s not serve to satisfy our customers. Let’s serve to WOW them. Let’s serve to CARE. Let’s be loud. Let’s be proud. Let’s be revolutionary! And let’s Be GREAT out there!”
Three weeks ago, I introduced the Rule of Three QUI TAKEAWAYS which will be revolutionary now, but once discussed many times over, will be viewed as traditional by many business professionals. In the last two weeks, I explained the first and second QUI TAKEAWAYS: CX versus CXM, and customer service versus customer CARE. In the next week, join me as we revolutionize the CX experience. This week, I will explain the third QUI TAKEAWAY: customer service training versus customer CARE education.
QUI TAKEAWAY: Don’t offer customer service training. Training is finite, usually one to three days. And training is top-down, one-way “I know everything, you know nothing” instruction. Training is to develop THE BUSINESS. Training is for a job. And the job of employees is to serve to satisfy the customer. In the end, training instructs people on how to TAKE CARE of the customer.
Instead, have business people enroll in Customer CARE University. We don’t have trainers or instructors. We have mentors and coaches. Our education classes are interactive. As mentors, educate your people with customer CARE actions to practice their interpersonal skills. They will learn and appreciate the value of telephone etiquette, service recovery, and customer CARE. After graduation, as coaches, remind them of your customer CARE excellence strategies. With suggestions, recommendations, and encouragement, empower your people to develop THEMSELVES and engage customers. Your people will create an emotional connection with their customers. The more emotional the connections, the more memorable the experiences, the more loyal the customers. Loyal customers will repeatedly return, spend more money, and rave about their WOW experience to others on social media.
In Customer CARE 101, your passion is to CARE for your people.
COMMUNICATE openly, transparently, interactively, and frequently any customer CARE information your people need or want to know. Listen empathetically to their suggestions, concerns, and complaints.
APPRECIATE their roles, responsibilities, actions, suggestions, and recommendations.
RECOGNIZE, honor, and offer accolades for their role-playing acts of customer CARE.
EMPOWER your people to act on their own to do what is right for them, their colleagues, their customers, and your business.
In Customer CARE 102, educate your people on how to CARE for their customers:
COMMUNICATE with each customer with a smile, eye contact, and polite interaction. Inform each customer transparently and interactively of the product’s or service’s function, liabilities, and advantages to the customer.
ACKNOWLEDGE each customer’s presence and value to the customer CARE person and your business.
RESPOND promptly and empathetically to each customer’s questions, concerns, and complaints.
ENRICH the experiences and, ultimately, the lives of every customer.
And, yes, educate everyone. Don’t just educate customer CARE representatives. Educate the people in the business who don’t need to CARE for their customers. When you create a GREAT experience for everyone as much as customer CARE representatives need to with their customers, you will earn the loyalty of both. Soon, without a focus on profits, profits will grow. Everyone, the people, their customers, the leaders and their businesses, and you and your business, will be enriched.
NEXT WEEK: Now is the time for a CX Revolution! Part Four.
For several weeks, starting last October, I offer each one of the Rule of Three QUI Takeaways to revolutionize CX. Why only three? Because nobody can remember Number Four. Who is the first President of the United States? Surely, George Washington. Who is Number Four? Who is the first person to walk on the moon? Neil Armstrong, of course. Who is Number Four? (By the way, the answers to who is Number Four are James Madison and Alan Bean.)
With the Rule of Three in mind, here is the second QUI TAKEAWAY: Customer service versus customer CARE.
Doctors and nurses don’t serve their ailing patients. They care. So shouldn’t customer service be customer care?
At the same time, customer service experts have advocated that the the people in customer service are the frontlines. Really? We may logically say that customer service representatives are the frontlines because they are front and center with customers. But customers emotionally feel they are doing battle with the customer service frontlines. So, no more saying that customer service representatives are the frontlines.
Business leaders are happy because their customer service people serve to satisfy their customers. But that’s not good enough. Satisfied customers feel that their experience is good, not better, just average. Nobody raves about average. And satisfied customers will not return as soon as they find an experience that is better or a price that is less expensive.
We have to do better than serve to sell to our customers. And we need to do better than to serve to satisfy our customers. Don’t treat customers as they expect to be treated. And don’t treat customers as YOU expect to be treated. Instead, treat your customers a little better than they expect to be treated. Serve to delight and WOW them. Serve to CARE for your customers.
COMMUNICATE with every customer with a smile, eye contact, and polite interaction. Inform each customer transparently and interactively of the product’s or service’s function, liabilities, and advantages to them.
ACKNOWLEDGE each customer’s presence and value to you and your business.
RESPOND promptly and empathetically to each customer’s questions, concerns, and complaints.
ENRICH the experiences and, ultimately, the lives of every customer.
And be Magnificently Boring to CARE! Consistently CARE for your customers so repetitively that you feel it is boring, but to every customer, at that moment, you are Magnificent! Customers have an emotional connection with you. The more emotional the connections, the more memorable the experiences, and the more loyal the customers are. Loyal customers will return repeatedly, spend more money, and rave about you to others on social media. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds relationships. Relationships build loyalty. Loyalty builds your business. CARE Magnificently!
Serving customers because you HAVE TO is your job. But giving GREAT customer CARE because you WANT TO is your passion. Customer CARE is having the liberty to determine one’s own actions, in this case, not to satisfy them, but to actualize their happiness. Service is satisfying your customers because you have to please them. Instead, make your customers happy because you want to please them. Emotionally bond with customers when you are interacting with them. Don’t take care of your customers because you have to. CARE for your customers because you want to.
Do more than satisfy your customers. Personalize your interaction to emotionally bond them to you. Then make them happy. Good customer service is having a smile on your face. GREAT customer CARE is having a smile on your customers’ faces.
When it comes to customers and customer CARE, don’t just be good. Be GREAT out there!
Next week: The third QUI TAKEAWAY: Customer service training versus customer CARE education.
Many CX professionals have advocated CX as strategies that explain customer journey mapping, the Peak End Rule, or innovative speed technologies among others. And they’ve done it so often for so long that “CX” has been the traditional term for many business leaders. But no more. This is our time for a CX Revolution!
To paraphrase John DiJulius’ battle cry, it’s time for a CX Revolution! Let’s be revolutionary to transform CX Into CXM, customer service to customer CARE, and customer service training to an education in customer CARE or customer CARE University.
Even though we want to revolutionize CX, we will still follow the Rule of Three. Why only three? Because nobody can remember Number Four. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the face of the moon. It was number four? George Washington was the first President of the United States. Who was number four? Who was the first president of the United States? Of course, George Washington. Who was Number Four? Who was the first person on the moon? Neil Armstrong. But who was Number Four?
Why do we have so much difficulty in remembering who is Number Four? It’s because most of us can only remember up to three things. In the very beginning, there were only three TV channels using only three letters: ABC, NBC, and CBS. We remember our favorite sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL. Aladdin’s genie had three wishes. The Werewolf confronted Three Little Pigs. And Goldilocks stumbled onto the home of the Three Bears. When you were in school, what did they teach you if you were ever to catch on fire? Stop, Drop, and Roll. If good things come in threes, what does that make Number Four?
With that in mind, here are three QUI TAKEAWAYS that will be revolutionary at first, but once discussed many times over, will be viewed as traditional by many business professionals.
QUI TAKEAWAY: CX versus CXM
QUI TAKEAWAY: Customer service versus customer CARE
QUI TAKEAWAY: Customer service training versus customer CARE education
I’ll explain the first QUI TAKEAWAY. The other two will come separately in the next two weeks.
First QUI TAKEAWAY: Customer service is what you do for your customers. Customer experience is how your customers feel about what you did. Customer experience management is what you do before, during, and after you find out how customers feel about what you did. Customer loyalty is how your customers feel about what you did again and again.
Customers pay for their experience, not your product or service. And they pay for THEIR experience, not yours. It’s all about them, never about you. Business management expert and author @Tom Peters said, “Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms. Perception is all there is!”
In other words, customers buy with emotion and justify their decision with reason. They seek the best emotional value in their entire experience, not the minutiae of your best price, product, or service, virtual or physical locations, AI, chatGPT, online, live chat, telephone, or face-to-face customer support, and the many other details of your business experience. In this their experience, not yours. So, it’s the best emotional value in their experience, not your best customer journey mapping, Peak End Rule, NPS, CSAT, CES or other CX metric strategy of your experience.
You may have been happy because your customers felt satisfied with their experience. But that’s not good enough. Satisfied customers feel that their experience is good, not better, just average. Nobody raves about average. And satisfied customers will leave as soon as they find an experience that is emotionally better or a price that is less expensive.
In the end, customer experience or CX is about the emotional value of the experience of customers. Customer experience management or CXM is how businesses prioritize the best emotional value for their customers over the best product, service, or technology, or CX strategy of your business experience.
QUI QUESTION: Customer service is a performance art. Are you Oscar-worthy?
Movie actors like Sandra Bullock, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Dwayne Johnson, and Keanu Reeves act to be happy, sad, scared, scary, or angry. Yet, we, as the audience, believe they are genuinely real. The actors may “act their part”, but they are so good that we, as the audience, believe they are real. Whether actors are acting the part or believe they are real is not important. It is never about the actors. It is always about the audience.
We, as customer service professionals, act to be happy to serve our customers so much so that they believe we are genuinely happy to serve. It doesn’t matter if we act it or not. What matters is if our customers believe we are genuine. When it comes to customer experience, it’s never about us. It’s always about them.
Like the movie and theatrical actors, we have to be Magnificently Boring! We need to consistently deliver a “better than the average experience that customers expect” so tediously repetitive that we feel it is boring, but to the customer, at every moment, we are Magnificent!
Oscar-worthy, in fact. So when it comes to customers, customer service, and customer experience, don’t just be good. Be GREAT out there!
QUI TAKEAWAY: If you advertise “Satisfaction Guaranteed”, what would you do differently? Do more. Do better. Do it now. When it comes to your customers and customer service, don’t just be good. Be GREAT out there!
You are happy because customers were satisfied with their purchase of your product or a resolution with your service. But that’s not good enough. Your satisfied customers feel that their experience is good, not better, just average. Nobody raves about average. And satisfied customers will not return as soon as they find an experience that is better or a price that is less expensive. On the flipside, with your GREAT customer CARE, your customers are willing to pay for their experience, no matter the price.
So, when it comes to customers and customer service, well, you get it. And if you don’t, you better.. Otherwise, you’d go broke. Literally. So …
Despite the business turmoil of the pandemic, Skimpflation, The Great Resignation, quiet quitting, and, now, the recession, envision a time when your business will, not only survive but, soon, thrive and succeed. Just exactly when is that time? Well …
Now is the time for a People First Revolution! One caveat is Employees First. Business leaders see themselves as bosses, hierarchical rungs well below their subservient “employees first” at the bottom of the ladder. With a “People First” culture, no longer are people taking second or third seats to profits or customers. Your people’s emotional well-being would take priority over your business’s financial health.
With that your People First in mind, whether your position or title, be a servant leader who will CARE for your people.
COMMUNICATE openly, transparently, interactively, frequently, and continuously any information that their people need and want to know. Listen empathetically to the people’s concerns, questions, and complaints. Express compassion with their recommendations and encouragement.
APPRECIATE the important roles and responsibilities of their people.
RECOGNIZE and offer accolades for your people’s individual and team accomplishments and acts of service to colleagues or customers.
EMPOWER people to make the right decisions for themselves, their colleagues, customers, and your business.
As a servant leader, ask your people two questions:
What do you think?
What can I do for you?
When you ask, promptly respond, and take action as appropriate, your people will feel valued and respected. They’ll be inspired, energized, and empowered to develop themselves. and engage their colleagues their customers and you and your business.
When you create a GREAT experience for your people, they will do the same for your customers, and you will earn the loyalty of both. Soon, without a focus on profits, your profits will grow. And everyone, your people, your customers, you and your business, will be enriched, literally and figuratively.
So what are you waiting for? Now is the time. It’s time for a People First Revolution! First, you will be best for your people, and then you will be first among your competitors.
"People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed."
Samuel Johnson
This blog, along with my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, offer practical tips, insight and inspiration to serve as reminders on how to improve your personal delivery of customer service.
BILL QUISENG | Deliver the World's Best Customer Experience 