How 8 minutes a day will change your customer service

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It’s hard to imagine how a mere eight minutes a day (every day) could mean the difference between where your customer service is today and where it needs to be to work as a true competitive advantage for your business, to transform it into an icon of exceptional Customer serviceable to command customer loyalty and passion, and often a price premium as well.

Plugging the eight-minute gap between your current level of customer service and the level you want it to be is one of several ultra-brief repetitive behaviors that I offer my consulting clients as truly transformational. I’m what’s known as a Customer Service Transformation Consultant: I work with companies to move them ever closer to the pinnacle of customer service excellence, helping customers in various industries become “The Zappos of Car Dealerships.” automobiles” or “the four seasons of banking”. “

1. Eight-Minute Customer Service Update Inspired by the Ritz-Carlton

If you want to be called “The Ritz-Carlton of Industry X” because of its excellent customer service, consider this: Since 1983, the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company has performed what they call a “line-up” every day (and on the start of each turn if there is more than one) without fail. I use the same technique, but call it “customer service upgrade.” The reason for keeping it to eight minutes is that by the time you start to move towards 10 minutes or, shudder, fifteen, you’re on your way to becoming just another meeting. (Note: depending on your company culture, a daily update may not be practical. If this is the case, do it weekly.)

In the customer service update, there is no mention of quarterly figures or KPIs. You don’t talk about anything like that. Instead, you work to convey, learn, and be inspired by one of your company’s core customer service principles or behavior guidelines.

For example, in Monday’s customer service update, you might be discussing the principle of “yes by default”: that as an organization and as individuals, you always strive to find a way to say “yes” to a customer, and that if you can Don’t say yes, never say outright “no” without offering one or two reasonable alternatives. Ideally, employees will even share examples of applying the “default yes” approach to real-life customer situations.

On Tuesday he will highlight another principle, perhaps his approach to customer service recovery, which means helping and ultimately changing the feelings of a customer. Etc. Think of how much learning and reinforcement your entire company will have experienced in even a week, let alone a year!

Related: 5 Life-Changing Customer Service Secrets You Can Learn From Five-Star Hotels

2. The 10-5-3 sequence to make sure no customer is ignored

An almost universal desire among customers is recognition: the feeling that they are being seen rather than ignored or ignored. ignored. A quick and easy way to implement to make sure the latter never happens, at least when they’re on premises, is the 10-5-3 sequence:

• Within 10 feet: Look up from what you are doing and acknowledge the guest with direct eye contact and a nod.

• At 5 feet: Smile, with your lips and eyes.

• Within 3 Feet: Verbally greet the guest and offer a time-of-day greeting (“Good morning”).

The one exception is that at three feet, if you notice your customer interacting with their cell phone, a fellow shopper, or a child (or parent), it’s important to just keep walking; Don’t bother this customer!

Related: A great customer experience starts with great management and employee engagement. This is why.

3. The rule of 3 rings

Answer incoming phone calls before they reach the fourth ring, at any time humanly possible. Because? Because by the fourth ring, the callers start to feel uncomfortable, doubting if you will ever talk back and start assuming that if you finally do, you’ll be too distracting or too helpful. In consideration of this, many of the biggest brands, such as Nordstrom and all the major luxury hotels, have taken the 3-ring rule very seriously.

It is the standard of the Forbes Travel Guide rating system; a hotel striving for four or five star status will have points deducted which may ultimately deny it the desired star rating if it falls behind the third ring too often). So now, to show customers that you too belong in this higher level of service, it’s best to stick to the three-ring limit when possible.

4. Instant behavior fix

To build and maintain an excellent customer service-focused company, it is essential to correct employee mistakes immediately, for two reasons. First and foremost, you want to improve customer service performance immediately rather than let destructive behaviors fester. Second, if you wait a while, say, until a performance review arrives, the employee will never remember the incident the same way you do, and will rage rather than learn from your correction at such a late date.

For best results, you should do a lot of “managing by walking” so that you can simultaneously model good customer service behaviors and also witness inevitable mistakes: language errors, over-informality (and over-formality, for that matter), and So. On: Seemingly tiny things that make a world of difference when you add them all up. Wait until customers are out of earshot and say, “Do you have a minute?” If you do this frequently and gracefully, no one’s stomach will drop when they hear these words.

To be sure, many aspects of the customer service transformation work I do take time. You’re not going to revamp your hiring process, rewrite your collateral, or design your behavioral best practices in just a few minutes a day. But it’s impressive how these brief but repetitive steps above can help you climb the ladder from tolerable customer service to excellent, even legendary customer service.