Riffing Space

It’s amazing to me how little credit we in the service industry give consumers. We persuade, we cajole, we come down from our perch of infinite wisdom to grace them with our greatness. And we make promises that mean nothing in the new economy.

Perhaps, at one point in time, our clients were ignorant fools in need of our supreme acumen. But, I have never experienced that. Okay, maybe I just attract smarter clients than most (which is most assuredly true), but I believe that we exist an age where clients are more informed about our industries than ever before. We are no longer gatekeepers (see my previous post). Yet, many still treat them as though we were in a different age long past.

No, they do not possess all the knowledge on a topic that years of experience has given us. That is why they come to us. We are there to offer more information than they have and, more importantly, to add insight. But, let’s not be condescending. Let’s not talk down to our clients. Let’s give them the credit that they are due. Let’s help them to make the decisions that are right for them. Let’s consult. Let’s inform. And, more importantly, let’s empower. (Okay, so they already are empowered. You are right…and that is exactly the point)

To tell clients that we will give them “excellent customer service,” that we will “exceed their expectations,” MEANS NOTHING. They already expect this. If you are not already providing “excellent customer service,” GET OUT OF THE “SERVICE” BUSINESS. To make these promises only tells me that a service provider will most likely NOT do those things. They will treat me as an ignorant fool that needs them to save me from myself. They won’t DO, so they PROMISE.

This is the important point: to make promises (and often, even, to deliver on those promises) is not enough. CREATE an experience, MAKE them money, PROVE your value. DO!

Transparency

As the world becomes more and more transparent, there is emerging an ever widening gap between the new class of information gathering consumers and the organizations that that seek to distort or, at the very least, hide the truth. Seth’s blog (check it out!) this morning got me thinking about the importance of transparency in the new modern economy. You can find out just about anything or anyone with a quick search on google. Companies spend millions of dollars to convince their customers (and potential customers) that their service is great, only to have websites like this one pop up at little or no expense.

Why hide information? In the old economy, it made more sense.

Hiding Information

Do consumers need to know everything about an organization? Obviously not. I am not going to let my competition know about the groundbreaking service that I will be implementing in eighteen months, only to have them take the idea and run with it in twelve. But we don’t have to be transparent about everything. Consumers don’t expect that. Some of them don’t expect much transparency at all.

Building Trust

But this is where they can be surprised. This is where you can build trust. Once a consumer (whether it is for a service or a product) recognizes this transparency, they inevitably will trust you more (a trust in which they have more confidence about as they gain more information). If they know they can trust you, they will be more inclined to trust your product or service.

Wiki-anything?

We are in the age of Wiki-anything. Information is free and readily available. Our value, especially as service providers, is to be a conduit for that information rather than a gatekeeper. To some people this is the same thing. In both instances information is flowing to the consumer. But there is a difference. If you are a conduit, you are not demanding something in return for your information.

Gatekeepers & Conduits

Consider the antiquated real estate industry (which I am a part of). At one point, a consumer would have to go to a Realtor if they wanted to know what houses were listed in the MLS. This was a way of guaranteeing a livelihood for hundreds of thousands of Realtors across the nation. But now consumers have a million places to go to get this information (most obviously, the internet). Did this kill the business? Well, current housing crisis aside, no. There are more agents out there than you can shake a stick at. Obviously it is just a lot more difficult to get and keep clients. And it is this way with most industries today. What used to make you valuable (the information that you had locked away) can now be gotten somewhere else. Now you have to earn your value in other ways. You have to be remarkable. You have to be worth talking about. You have to build a community of true believers around you and your product. You have to be trusted.

How can you do this? Be a conduit. Be transparent.

Just an idea. What do you think?

Yes, as a person that has spent the past 22 years in one form or another of sales, I have done cold calling. I have even called people at home (though it made me feel dirty). And, of course, I have also received my share of such calls. The federal DO NOT CALL list was an answer to prayer for millions of Americans, but few realize that, as of Sept. 15, their registration on the list began to expire. That’s because there is a 5 year limit, after which people must re-register for another five years.

Newsweek reports that less than one-third of those who need to re-register on the Do Not Call list. According to them, marketers are ready to pounce. Chris Houchens makes the great point that people who didn’t want to be called 5 years ago, don’t want to be called today. I doubt there are many sitting around, saying to themselves, “I miss those calls…I feel so lonely.”

For those of you who do make those calls, keep in mind that you will rarely be seen as a person that wants to help the consumer solve a problem. You will never be seen as a consultant. Instead, you will spend most of your time trying to change the prospect’s (if we can really call them that) first impression of you as a rude intruder.

Mona Shaw of Bristow, Virginia, went at her local Comcast payment center with a hammer, smashing up some items, all the while asking, “Do I have your attention now?” After being arrested, the 75 year-old with a heart condition complained that the company had begun to switch over her phone service, then left it for four days and her without a phone. Apparently after many attempts to get the issue resolved, she resolved to take things (like a hammer) into her own hands.

As the world changes and as customers begin to have more choices, this kind of behavior will only come from the fading oligopolies (and few monopolies–check out Seth’s Blog) of the world.

If you have time for a bit of humor, check out Kramer’s rather elaborate cable man revenge scheme from one of the greatest series ever…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i86lyjM-UKY]

I was just thinking about an example in the Tipping Point of a company that understands the importance of early-adopters.  Apparently just after Toyota started its Lexus line, they realized that they had made a mistake with the first 400LS model (so small that most companies would have ignored it), their flagship car.  Instead of ordering a massive recall a-la most auto companies, they personally called every owner, apologized for the inconvenience, then offered to have their dealerships to all the necessary upgrades.  They even ended up sending an L.A. mechanic to Alaska because there were no local dealerships to do the job.  Why?  They understood that these people who bought before the product was fully tested by the marketplace, were the people that were spreading the word about their cars.  They were the “mavens”, as Gladwell puts it, and they should be treated as such.

I am still a bit surprised that Jobs didn’t intuitively know this, that he didn’t take it into account before the price reduction.  Sure, he offered a great letter and rebate to the early-adopters, the “mavens”, only after the backlash (though, I admit, he reacted very quickly).  Seth’s blog has some interesting suggestions for Apple of his own.

Peace,

Brandon

I love the idea of Salesforce.com! It is a perfect example of a “disruptor”, changing–practically overnight–the ways in which we think of CRM (customer relationship management), placing it on the web and offering a wonderfully scalable solution to growing businesses. And, of course, I love anything and anyone who challenges Microsoft.