And likely to fail for the same reasons…
It’s that time of year again…
Beginning of January. The time of year when most people make a list of goals or resolutions that they just know will finally fix all the things that need fixing in their lives.
Maybe they want to lose weight. Or make more money. Or break a bad habit like drinking too much or smoking.
So they join a gym. They register a domain for that business idea they had. They tell themselves they won’t buy any more beer or cigarettes, as soon as what they have runs out, that is…
We all know how this story ends.
A few months later, if not sooner, they’re right back where they started. Probably can’t even remember what their resolutions were.
I’ve been guilty of this myself. More times than I’d like to admit.
A lot has been written about how to stick to a goal or resolution. I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel here, but in thinking about this stuff, as so many people are this time of year, I realized something…
The things that cause us to fail at our resolutions are the same things that make customer service the nightmare it has become.
A few examples:
Focusing on things outside your control:
The weight loss example is classic here.
“I’m going to lose 50 pounds” doesn’t work nearly as well as “I’m going to eat healthy and exercise every day.”
“I’m going to satisfy every upset customer who contacts me” doesn’t work nearly as well as “I’m going to keep my customers happy by preventing problems and making sure they never have to get upset and contact me in the first place.
You can’t will the fat off your gut. And you can’t will a customer who is upset that you didn’t deliver what you promised to suddenly love you again.
You can stop drinking so many beers and take more walks. And you can identify the most common things customers contact you about and preemptively fix them.
Relying on willpower and effort:
Willpower is like a muscle. Even the strongest muscles eventually get fatigued and fail.
It’s why you catch yourself having that third beer when you said you’d stop at two from now on.
And it’s why your customer service agent who answers the same question 400 times a day is inevitably going start to hate life and do a crappy job. It’s even worse when you’re doing it yourself, trust me.
Failure is too easy. Success is too hard.
If you want to drink less beer, that fridge full of beer probably isn’t helping you. Put it somewhere you can’t see it as easily, or stop buying it.
If you want to have happier customers, stop making them contact your customer service department! Give them what they paid for, and a little bit more. Deliver it as smoothly as possible. It seems simple, but so many people miss this.
In a properly run business, the customer can be assumed to be happy unless he give you a reason to think otherwise.
Any time a customer has to contact you with a question or issue, he is automatically less happy than he would be if the issue never came up.
The best, most perfect response to his question is still vastly worse than no response to no question.
Make success automatic.
Stick to your healthy eating goals by only having healthy food in the house.
Keep customers happy by selling a well targeted product to qualified customers only, and making sure that they never have a reason to contact you about it.
Multiple personalities…
One of the most helpful things I ever read about sticking to goals was this…
Make the goal part of your identity.
BECOME the person who eats healthy. Don’t just “resolve” to eat healthy.
How do you do this? Through your actions. Every action is a vote towards what kind of person you want to be.
When you hit the drive through on the way home, you’re voting. And that vote is for being an unhealthy fatass.
Same goes for business. Every time you send out a piece of copy that promises something your product doesn’t deliver, you’re voting for what kind of business you are.
The unhappy customers, or the big fat gut, follow naturally from this.
Become the guy who eats healthy foods, and you won’t have to think about “resisting” that cheeseburger.
Become the business that sells good products to qualified buyers, and you won’t have to worry about whether or not you’re tricking suckers for a quick buck.
Eliminate toxic people and influences:
You probably have some kind of New Year’s resolutions already. I do. I hope you’ve got big things planned. I do.
Do me a favor. Go announce those resolutions to the people closest to you. Friends, family, coworkers…
Watch their responses. Are they supportive, or do they immediately start with excuses of why you can’t do it, or the goal is stupid, etc?
One of my goals this year is to quadruple my income. I haven’t told many people about it, because I know what they’re going to say…
“Be realistic!”
“It’s not all about money!”
And yes, I should probably spend less time with some of these people. But for now, just silencing their criticisms (by not discussing it) will have to do.
Who are the toxic influences on your customer service?
Usually they’re some of your customers themselves. The vocal minority. The people you hear from the most, who also buy the least.
The complainers. The cheapskates. The freebie seekers. The serial refunders. The people offering “a helpful piece of advice” on something they’re not qualified to talk about.
A client I work with sells a product for $300 per month. Customers (or non-customers) regularly complain that this is WAY too much for what’s offered.
One guy kindly suggested that we’d make a lot more money if it was, say $12 a month.
Others complain when their accounts are billed at the end of a subscription term. Others complain when the market is down and they lose money.
But others simply pay month after month, use and benefit from the service, and have never contacted customer service once.
This is where the money is. These are the people you want. And if you only at customer service feedback, you’ll never know they exist.
Actively repel the complainers, the freebie seekers, the serial refunders.
Their feedback isn’t (necessarily) worthless, but it needs to be weighed against the “feedback” of all the happy, satisfied, repeat customers you never hear from.
Conclusion:
I’ve set some pretty ambitious goals for myself this year. And I’m determined to make them happen, unlike so many years in the past.
When I first took over customer service for James Altucher several years ago, it was a mess.
Customers were complaining night and day, and the customer service department, myself included, was struggling to keep up.
I had to develop a new approach to fix things and keep my head above water. A way to get vastly better results with much less wasted time and effort.
80/20.
I fixed all the “common” problems people were contacting us about. I wrote quality email templates to automate replies to the stuff I couldn’t prevent.
I gave my team the authority (and expectation) to handle as much as possible on their own without asking me. I made sure they understood the business, the products, and what we were trying to do.
I made success automatic, and I got the hell out of the way.
This year, I’m finally taking the same approach to my goals and resolutions.
This includes helping more people get their customer service right, and make more money.
If you’re not already, get on the list so you don’t miss what comes next.
