I had to ring the bank this week to organise payment in Euros to our German office. £25 to transfer money online!! But that’s not the point. Call centre person picks up the phone, UK based, but could still barely understand a word. Once the guy had finished being my new best mate I started to explain what I wanted to do. Literally half way through explaining it he interrupted with “how’s your day been today so far?”. What?!? Maybe he’d just watched Love Actually, the bit where Billy Bob Thornton plays the US President and waltzes into Number 10 Downing St. Or maybe he was following the new ‘customer service’ script that says you have to ask customers how their day has been so far. “Fine thanks” I said and carried on. Eventually we established that, surprisingly, they couldn’t help me and I would have to go into the branch to set the payment up. So much for the online revolution, but what really irked me was the interruption on the phone whilst I was explaining what I wanted to do. Oh I forgot to mention, that at the end of the (pointless) phone call I had to spend a further minute reassuring ‘Kev’ that yes he had answered all my questions and no there wasn’t anything else I needed.
I’ve just been to another shop. Having just had to go to the bank. As the bank had just charged me £25 for the pleasure of having to walk there in the rain and use their ‘service’ I was not full of the joys. I was buying a birthday card and also wanted some stamps. I handed the card over and as the words “Can I also...” left my mouth I was arksed (deliberate spelling) if I wanted to buy a teddy bear for the bargain price of £5 instead of £10. No, thanks, but AS I WAS JUST SAYING I’d like 12 second class stamps please. “We don’t sell second class stamps. Would you like some sprinkles to brighten up your card?”.
I then went to the post office. To buy some second class stamps. Finally, success. The girl behind the counter looked calm and in control. She asked me politely if she could help and then do you know what? She remained quiet and listened. 12 second class stamps in the bag! No offers of additional ‘bargains’, no desperate attempts to please, just job done efficiently and nicely.
So, if you work in customer service I reckon that what customers actually want is their issue dealt with calmly and efficiently. Which means, listen to what they say to you first. Being quiet is often more helpful than gabbling on like a fool, despite what the script says.
It got me thinking about how this translates to leadership....
Last week I ran a one-day leadership workshop for a client. Only having one day there’s a limit to how much we could do, but one thing we did cover was the importance of listening. As leaders you need to recognise that you will achieve a more positive outcome if you give people what they need rather than focussing on what is important to you. We cover the technique of empathic listening. Defined by Stephen Covey in ‘7 Habits’ as “seek first to understand and then be understood”. It’s about listening with the intent to understand rather than listening with the intent to reply. So often as managers we go into problem solving mode and are already diagnosing and judging what needs to be done before the other person has finished speaking. The point is you can only satisfy someone’s needs if you fully understand what those needs are, and that means making the conscious effort to listen. It means paying attention, remaining quiet, not getting distracted and not jumping to conclusions. If you find yourself focussing on offering your people sprinkles to brighten up their cards, fluffy teddies at knock down prices or asking them how their day has been so far whilst they are still talking they will rapidly get fed up with you.
Try these simple things.
Do not:
- do not speak until they have finished
- do not refresh your email whilst they are speaking
- do not interrupt
- do not be tempted to start diagnosing the course of action
Do:
- remain quiet
- look at them at all times. Not scary staring eye contact, but lots of eye contact
- nod at appropriate times
- summarise what they have said at the end to make sure you are clear and they are happy that you’ve grasped it
Do this and you will make sure that the rest of their day is genuinely better than it would have been.
I ordered some leather balm online last week. For the sofa you understand. It’s fantastic stuff, John Lewis sell it for £5 a tube, but I found it online for £10 for a pack of 5. Good, I use that much of it that 5 is no problem. Was a bit miffed at the £7.50 postage charge (more on Ryanair in a minute...), but still cheaper overall than John Lewis. However, when it arrived I opened the box and not only was there the 5 tubes of leather cream, but they had included a tube of leather cleaner, furniture cream and a couple of antiseptic handwash thingies. Brilliant! Didn’t ask for them, arguably don’t need them, but the leather cleaner and furniture cream are probably also worth a few quid. I was dead chuffed because they didn’t have to chuck in the extra stuff, but they did. And now I’ll buy all my leather cream from them in the future. Simple. It got me thinking...
Times are tough for a lot of people and it’s tempting as a business to start thinking along the lines of Tesco and some of the other major retailers. Three coaching sessions for the price of two anyone?! Buy one workshop get one free?!? We know some companies who are running training courses for free! We’ve talked about it, but I actually came to the conclusion that, as a business, we are more like John Lewis than Tesco. We do good quality stuff and are nice to deal with. Some people might find us too expensive, but not for those clients who appreciate quality. Which is why I’ve always resisted ‘special offers’. In our business they might be useful to get a foot in the door, but if people view you as ‘cheap’ then they will always view you as cheap. Is getting three for the price of two really cheap?
And then there’s the other extreme. We booked the flights for our family holiday this week. I’m not going to rant on about Ryanair - search on Hitler rants about Ryanair on youtube for some fun. But NOT if you are easily offended! - but suffice to say we paid the extra £200 to fly Easyjet rather than use Ryanair. Not that Easyjet are significantly better - £30 just to pay by credit card!! It’s not a clever way of doing business, it leaves people feeling ripped off.
The lesson? If you run a business, or are a manager of people, be up front, honest and open. Bad news delivered skillfully is always better received than good news delivered unskillfully. People want to know where they stand, they don’t like ‘hidden charges’ or ‘optional extras’ that aren’t’ really optional. Even better, when times are hard what really delights people is giving them more than they expected. So, give more for less rather than more for more and pretending it is less! When things stabilise they will remember how you treated them.
