Achieving Customer Delight John Paul Association Works – Dallas, Texas © Association Works, 2001

Customer Delight Not Customer Satisfaction, but...

Redefining The Business Saturn Amazon.com Titanic - The Musical Palm Pilot FedEx Your Organization?

It Starts At The Top Who is the champion for the Customer Delight initiative? Organizations have:  Visionaries  Leaders  Managers

Adequate Is Not Acceptable Most of what we do is adequate People talk about Customer Delight People talk about bad service People don’t talk about adequate service

Where Are We Now? 1-5 (5=No Improvement Needed) 1) This organization is focused externally 2) Staff are fully empowered to delight customers 3) We are constantly looking for better ways to delight our customers 4) We listen to what our customers are telling us and act accordingly 5) We know who our customers are 6) We know what our customers want 7) We have an ongoing process to monitor how delighted our customers are

8) Our staff are trusted to do the right thing 9) All of our policies make sense 10) We are actively engaged in building long term relationships with our customers 11) Our plans are current and regularly updated 12) Training is important to this organization 13) Training is relevant to what we do 14) We realize that the smallest things can have the biggest impact 15) We treat every customer the way they want to be treated Where Are We Now? 1-5 (5=No Improvement Needed)

The Truth About Customers Ten times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep a current customer - Bain & Company Research Customers are lost primarily due to indifference (66%) versus dissatisfaction (14%) - WSJ

The Best Woo – the ability to win others over Empathy – the ability to understand the mood of others Discipline – the ability to work systematically and consistently Command – the ability to control a situation through communication Responsibility – the ability to own a problem until it is solved Gallup Survey of Best Customer Service Representatives

Not to organizations Donors, volunteers, and Program participants relate to people

The Problem The problem is never how to get new innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out Dee Hock, VISA

You do not merely want to be considered the best of the best…. You want to be considered the only one who does what you do Jerry Garcia

Standing Out When we did it right it was still pretty ordinary Barry Gibbons, Burger King We defined personality as a market niche - we seek to amuse, entertain, surprise Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines

Create A Life Changing Experience What we sell is the ability for a 43 year old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns and have people be afraid of him. Harley Davidson Executive

Story Telling Do people tell positive stories about your organization? Mayo Clinic Volvo Firestone Tires Rolex Perception is reality

What Should We Be Doing… To stand out in the crowd? To create a life changing experience? To create stories about us?

Know Your Participants The Golden Rule doesn’t apply It is now the Platinum Rule When was the last time you asked your participants what were their expectations? It doesn’t need to be complex

“Men and women don’t think the same way, don’t communicate the same way, don’t buy for the same reasons.” “He simply wants the transaction to take place. She’s interested in creating a relationship. Every place women go, they make connections.” Faith Popcorn

Quick Quiz By 2005 ____% of all firms will be female owned A woman opens a new business every _______ Women influence ____% of all car purchases Women own ____% of all stocks

Quick Quiz By 2005 of all firms will be female owned A woman opens a new business every Women influence of all car purchases Women own of all stocks 40 % 60 seconds 90 % 53 %

Opportunities For Customer Delight What happens when you first interact with a customer? What occurs to build a relationship? Do you spend more to get new customers than on enhancing the relationship with current customers? What makes you unique?

Relationship Continuum First Interaction Entry into System Next Interaction Proactive or Reactive Customer Delight Moments Of Truth

Customers Who are they? What do they want? Are we meeting their needs?

Why Should We Be Concerned? In the average business, for each customer who complains there are 26 who feel the same way and don’t speak up. The customers who feel poorly served will tell between 8 and 16 people about their negative experience. »Technical Assistance Research, Inc.

Staff And Volunteers Are Partners Different needs exist A partnership isn’t always Who are your internal partners? What do they want?

Internal Focus When the organization has its face focused internally it has its butt toward the customer. Paraphrased from Funky Business

Partners Who are they? What do they want from me? What do I want from them?

Empowerment Environment Empowerment is the “What” not the “How”

 The Past  No one knows what it means  Abdication  Perfectionism  Lack of trust  Espouse Theory Y – Practice Theory X  More time spent on structure instead of behavior  Lack of commitment Why Empowerment Fails

Notes On Empowerment  Empowerment rests on trust  Don't play games  Practice “no surprises”  Hug the messenger  Decision making  Who can solve problems?

 Be a coach not an expert  Fix the problem - not the blame  No more "father/mother knows best"  Empowerment must be in everything  The test: How are mistakes treated?  It encourages change & communication Notes On Empowerment

Actually Customer expectations are typically not very high Your job is to surprise them Customer Delight is doing what they haven’t even imagined What will cause them to say WOW! You know what you can do - they don’t

Making Customer Delight A Core Value Staff Meetings Board Meetings Define and visualize the ideal experience Make a part of each agenda What did we do right? Missed opportunities? Recognition Who is the “champion” for Customer Delight? How are we treating customers now?

Creating Customer Delight What’s working? –How can we do more? Any barriers? –How can we overcome them?

I Will Identify crimes committed against Customers, Donors, Program Participants and Each Other ……and do SOMETHING

Two Things I Will Do… 1) 2)

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it Michelangelo

Achieving Customer Delight John Paul Association Works – Dallas, Texas