Month: May 2017

A customer relationship can last for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

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People come into your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. This is true not only for people in your life, but for prospects and customers for your company.
And your company will probably touch people’s lives in the same way – for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
This means that not all customer relationships will turn into a lead, a sale, a testimonial, a support customer. Sometimes, a prospect could turn into an influencer. Or a prospect could stay a prospect, as someone who likes your product and recommends it to colleagues so they can champion the sale. Or a prospect is part of a product evaluation team and will never use your product. Or a prospect could buy your product, become a customer, love using your product and become your best support agent on a forum or write your most used testimonial.
Not all prospects and customers are equal and they shouldn’t be treated equally. Sure, treat all prospects and customers with friendliness and warmth, but you don’t need to immediately funnel someone into a lead path or expect them to buy. Again, some prospects will be a connection for a reason, a season or a lifetime. 
I think companies need to accept that it’s natural for prospects to to do this. This is what it means to have a target market. Not everyone will have problems that your company can solve, or the solution isn’t exactly what they had in mind to help them for whatever reason. And that is ok.
What’s more important tha this is the relationship the company has with this individual.
We focus our businesses so much on doing, on activities to work towards a goal, and that goal is usually purchasing. We create or document buyer or customer journeys that outline actions and decisions. But is that the only goal in business?
There is a great piece of art at the Dallas Entrepreneur Center about business being about socializing, or conversations.
Deals are made by exchanging ideas and bringing a prospect or customer along with you in your communication.
Clicking on links or reading pieces of content doesn’t drive a deal. Sure, customers are now doing more research online than ever before, reading up to 11 pieces of content before talking to a salesperson. In response, marketing departments created content marketing. Was that the right solution for the wrong problem?
To me, the problem that has always existed in the background is that sales people were and still can be too overwhelming, overly driven to make someone purchase. People don’t like pressure, so in turn, they answered their questions on their own. They decided to build a relationship only when they were ready.
And who would blame them? The sales experience could be related to the dating world where you go to a bar to not find a date, but to go steady after a conversation and a drink. Not just who wants that? Who NEEDS that? It’s insane.
Sadly, in marketing, the focus continues on turning someone into a lead. Shouldn’t marketing and sales think bigger? I remember as a kid hearing how sales people would see everyone as helping them in their business. This means that not everyone is a lead. Someone may lead you to a lead, knowing someone who may need your product. Or someone may have a service that helps your company. Or in 6 months, that person could suggest your company and product to someone.
What we sometimes miss when we are so focused on turning leads is introductions and opportunities to build relationships with those who can help you by helping them. By focusing on the lead process and selling a product or creating product only, you are missing out on the potential of a new business relationship. This person is a prospect – not just a prospect for a sale, a way to get a lead, or another role – this person offer a prospective business relationship. Explore where it could go and don’t limit your view to sales. There’s more to business than your bottom line.
I propose taking a step back and working on the higher level goal – developing a relationship with your prospect. Through the customer relationship lifecycle, rather than a defined journey path, which is important, figure out what the relationship should look like at different parts of the cycle. Determine what it will take to go to the next step of the process. Consider what’s needed to make a decision. And if someone doesn’t go to the next step, that’s ok. They don’t have to; the relationship is more important.
Customer Relationship Lifecycle
By going away from the focus being on leads, focus instead on how you can help this person, get to know that person and let him know what you do, get to know the problems you solve. Shift the interaction from lead generation to making business being socializing with purpose. Be helpful to others. Create a relationship.
Build a relationship with that person who may be in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Who knows what it will bring – and that’s the joy of building relationships with customers.
A customer relationship can last for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

Oh no! Your contempt is showing!

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We often hear about contempt in the news – airline employees, politicians, customer service representatives (Comcast, usually). But how do you know when an employee of a company feels contempt for you? What does it look like?
 
Interacting with someone who feels contempt (a version of pity) for you is different than someone who feels anger, frustration or who lacks self-awareness (e.g., being too focused on their own lives to notice that they hurt your feelings, forgetting that you are a person too, or forgetting that you have knowledge as well). 
 

Here’s how it’s different. 

Before you realize it, someone who feels contempt towards you has already objectified you. You are not a person in the eyes of someone who feels contempt. It’s easier for someone to stay distant if you are a member of a defined group with specific traits and characteristics versus being a human with thoughts, feelings and a background story. If you have thoughts and feelings, there may be a story as to how you got into your situation – and there may be a solution (based in compassion). Keeping you distant and labelled not only makes it easier to objectify you, but it can help the individual maintain his or her belief system. You are fitting into their story of the world. They are not hearing your story to understand you and see if they can connection to your story. This is the danger of stereotypes and prejudices – someone is basing their understanding of a person on perceivable traits from a group and not on their personhood.  
 
But notice that there is a way to "fix" contempt and that's by breaking through stereotypes and getting to know and understand the person. More on this coming. 
 
Keep in mind that contempt isn’t about love and understanding; it’s about power and control. Rather than the intention of the interaction focusing on how to help the other person, it turns to be “what did you do to cause your situation?” This is the complete opposite of compassion and helping someone solve their problem. 
 

What are some signs that someone may feel contempt towards you as a customer?

The customer is never right. A customer may be participating in a discussion that isn’t just a debate or a time to share ideas, and learn new things with an employee. That employee is doing what he or she can to be right.

This is a different type of discussion than someone talking about facts or arguing a point about how to address an issue or trying to get to the best possible answer. I’m talking about being right even if the person is misguided and plain wrong. The employee keeps the conversation going, rambling across topics to get you to admit that he or she is right about a topic, even going as far as to fall to opinion only and ignore facts.  

Mansplaining is a great example. In those cases, men feel the need to explain something to a woman to be right. And they aren’t proving something to you, but to themselves. They want to be right and make you wrong because, well, to them you are a mere woman.
 

A version of mansplaining can happen to customers by company employees. The customer may make a claim about an event, or product or issue. The employee claims that the customer must be wrong, the company is never wrong. There is no acknowledgement of the customer's point or a path defined so everyone wins. It's only about the employee winning and being right.

A friend of mine shared a story of her experience in Home Depot. She was looking for a specific part. She asked the salesperson where that part was in the store. He showed her where it was but proceeded to tell her that she needed a different part. He never asked her why she needed the part or what she was doing for a project. There was a lot of back and forth between my friend and this employee, a seemingly circular conversation where he kept trying to "be right." Finally, the employee admitted that she had the right part, but then questioned why she had that situation in the first place with this employee. 

That employee's actions are a sign of contempt.

Demonstrating an underlying hostility towards a customer; "Why can't they do what they are supposed to do?" It’s understandable that someone would be annoyed at answering the same question four times in a row. But there can be a response based on being tired of answering the same question, stressed about the line of 30 people all wanting to get a fast answer "right now," and annoyed that these customers keep asking questions, thinking "sigh can’t they just figure this out on their own? "

A great example of an employee feeling contempt is the American Airlines guy who loses it. I mean, we’re not just talking anger. He obviously can’t understand why the customers are upset, and we can only assume that he believes they caused their own problems, he constantly defends his behavior (because he is right – and will be right, darn it!), and wants the customers to just do what they are supposed to do (in this case, give him the stroller and quietly sit in their seats and not speak up). 

It's dangerous for an employee to think that a customer should be able to solve a problem on his own and that they caused their own problem. The next series of thoughts after those can include "why" that customer can't solve their own problem, which can introduce negative, prejudicial sentiments like: because they just aren’t smart enough, can’t speak English well enough, are female or some other factor. The person is again, objectified, and reduced to a handful of traits. If the employee got to know him or her and the situation, most likely the response would be different. But that's not happening. 
 
Ignoring a customer. Somehow employees think ignoring customers is ok, but it isn’t. If you have been ignored by a team or an individual, you know what I’m talking about. You feel invisible and not heard. In a way, ignoring or excluding a customer is a form of passive-aggressive behavior. You are placing that person outside the group because they are somehow different from you, saying something you don't agree with, or aggravate you. Now, you may be ignoring someone because they are mean spirited. That's a different story.
 
Sometimes an employee will ignore a customer, hoping he or she will go away and solve the problem on their own. They caused it, they should solve it. That's not helpful and will only present a company in a negative light. The customer will believe the company doesn't care, which most likely, isn't true. The managers in that company would care if they heard that complaint. Only that employee doesn't care. But the employee may not realize the impact he is having on that customer – and the company's image – that's the problem! 
 
Calling a customer a name. Yes, sometimes people can be 12. This is never acceptable, but it seems to happen when contempt is present. We see this frequently in politics today with people calling others “libtards” and “snowflakes.” Name calling is a type of objectification. That person isn’t an individual with a rationale and reasoning as to why he believes as he does. And we have already covered where that goes.
 
Subtle negative comments. Has someone ever said something to you or near you that made you do a double take, but no one seemed to notice or care? No, it wasn’t a mistake and no, you didn’t hear them wrong. They said it. Most likely, if what the person said distressed you, it wasn’t a mistake, or at least a conscious mistake.
 
If the person who made such a comment was an employee saying this to a customer, depending on what was said, there could be a lawsuit. It sounds extreme, but there are many videos today of employees speaking inappropriately to customers. If you are in that situation as an employee, before you speak, pause, and ask yourself why you are saying what you are saying. There may be a personal issue driving that comment – from being jealous that the person is model-thin to her resembling your mother-in-law who you hate. 
 
 
Contempt is never acceptable, especially at work or between employees and customers. However, if you feel contempt towards someone and notice that you are exhibiting some of the traits above, pause before you act and think through what you are saying (or doing) and why. You may be overwhelmed and need a break. The customer may remind you of someone you don't like. There could be many triggers for your contempt.
 
However, the best way to break the tension and remove the contempt is to ask that person to share their story. 
  • How is their day?
  • Why did they buy the product?
  • What is their weekend like?
  • What are your plans today?
Getting personal always erases contempt, especially because it is during those moments when we realize that we are all humans with thoughts, emotions and stories trying to do our best. And we start to find common ground. Connect with each other. Find common life experience. Start to feel empathy.
 
Oh no! Your contempt is showing!

Contempt: the relationship killer. Empathy: the best relationship builder.

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We are taught in school that we should treat others as we wish to be treated. In the new economy, we need to treat others as they want to be treated.*
But how do we know how others want to be treated?
We don’t. We can only speculate and imagine how someone else must feel in certain situations. And this is dangerous. Psychiatrists don’t like to treat people they haven’t at least met (the ‘Goldwater Rule’). For those of us who haven’t studied the mind for at least 8 years in a university and had clinical training, playing armchair psychiatrist can be beyond harmful in how we deal with other people. Not only do we have a light understanding of various disorders based on a handful of Internet searches, but we make judgements based on a surface understanding of someone based on our experience of them. We only know what we have experienced or encountered, which is quite limited to a few hours versus the years that person has lived and had experience to shape their current personality. Personality tests can have a similar effect. We know how we personally scored, but can you use generalities to make assumptions about other people? Not always. What you see on the surface may not fully reflect someone’s true identity or background. People are complicated and diverse.
We all live very individual lives from when we wake up to when we go to sleep. We have different emotional responses, different thoughts, different beliefs, different experiences. We connect with each other through language and shared experiences, both physical and emotional.
We need to use shared experiences as a frame of reference to understand each other. That’s how we bond. When we date, we share experiences to get to know the other person and how they react in different situations. When we have friends, we share past experiences and do things together to understand the other person.
Why don’t we do that with our customers and prospects?
Lately in business, we haven’t been. That’s why we hear stories like the ones from United, JetBlue, Comcast. What we see from those employees is contempt for customers. There was a video about an incident on American Airlines where the employee acted like he was going to get into a physical altercation with a passenger. He was that angry. I take that back – not angry – full of contempt for the passengers on the plane. How do you get that hostile trying to tell someone she needs to check her baby carriage into luggage? One perspective is that you come to work full of contempt for these customers. Or you feel it build during your day saying the same thing to everyone ALL. DAY. LONG.
Arthur Brooks talks about contempt fueling the polarization we are seeing in politics today:
I don’t want to get into a political discussion, but what he presents is a great frame to discuss why empathy matters and is relevant in our interactions today. There is a lot of contempt in society today – polarized views, and not just in the political sphere. The challenge with the United story was that the airline felt it was 100% correct in its actions and claimed no responsibility. Similar with JetBlue – there is no responsibility from their side. It’s an “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality that doesn’t encourage relationship building.
The discussion shouldn’t be about who is right or wrong. Everyone should be winning. How do you get there? Not through contempt, that’s for sure.
Contempt is the opposite of empathy. When you are feeling contempt, you are feeling a type of disgust that originates from pity. Pity originates from believing that someone can’t help themselves out of a horrible situation. In a way, you see that person as a lesser person. “Why can’t that person figure out a solution to his or her problem?” You have no patience for hearing that person’s choices and decisions because to you it could all be avoided if that person were smarter, more creative, more innovative, or whatnot.
Contempt builds distance between people. It doesn’t build relationships. And in today’s world, relationships are vital to business. In the future, it will be even more important.
The Peer-to-Peer Economy
There was a great video by Noam Chomsky about Bernie Sanders and the rise of the peer-to-peer economy – even in politics.
Bernie showed us the power of the people when we make a conscious decision to act. Individuals funded his campaign and enabled it to get as far as it did. He made funding his campaign approachable at $27/person. That’s about the price of a moderate dinner out.
If we take this model one step further, we are seeing the rise of Airbnb, Uber and Lyft, Etsy, eBay, Amazon and other peer-to-peer companies. Business is fast becoming shifting between B2B or B2C and less peer-to-peer and more person-to-person. Marketplace companies are emerging to facilitate these transactions. This isn’t a new idea, really. Marketplaces have existed since the start of the Web; users then weren’t ready to embrace this type of interaction or economy.
What’s different about P2P (person-to-person) interaction is that this is based strongly on relationships – relationships between people and relationships to the holding company/marketplace. Without them, they won’t work.
This makes empathy for customers and the relationship lifecycle even more important. As we move to a P2P environment where we are interacting with individuals more often, we all need to be more understanding of each other. The world is shrinking – you can reach out to someone in India with a single click and start working with him or her. But the ability to understand another is becoming a skill. As the world becomes smaller, what people want and need is getting more similar and more different by the day (globalization and localization combined with personal preference – a tall order!). Experiences are more diverse. It’s difficult to truly understand another person’s experience and find commonalities (empathy), but without this, connection is challenging.
What to do?
It seems we have some time! We still are in the B2B/B2C paradigm.
Today customers have an initial relationship with a company through content, building trust. It can take up to 11 or more pieces of content before a prospect reaches out to talk to someone at a company. Sometimes, a prospect doesn’t talk to anyone before they buy.
But at some point, prospects and customers need to talk to an employee of the company. And that conversation introduces a type of relationship between the prospect/customer and employee. It may be a 5 or 10 minute conversation and quick acquaintance, but it’s a type of interaction and relationship nevertheless. During the conversation there needs to be some type of understanding built to help the prospect/customer resolve his issue.
And you can only be understanding when you feel empathy for someone else. And you can only feel empathy if you can relate to the experience that person is having.
Today we are connecting prospects/customers with employees through business conversations. Business is a conversation. And in a conversation, if you can’t connect to someone through a shared experience and feel empathy, you can’t build a relationship. And soon, we will be moving from the B2B/B2C model to the P2P model to a pure relationship model. Heck, we may be there already today.
*words from my HR professor recently in class.
Contempt: the relationship killer. Empathy: the best relationship builder.

Use empathy on support/service calls to build connections, improve someone’s day, and create a great experience

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We talk to sad, angry, grumpy, stressed, even hysterical people at work every day. But how can you help them solve their problems, shift their mood, and maintain your own mood at the same time?

Doesn't seem like it should be part of your job? If you work in customer service or in account management, believe it or not, it probably is. When a customer calls with a problem he or she needs resolved, most likely, that person is in a foul mood. People don't call customer service or support because things are going well. And when things aren't going well, people are emotional, and want someone to help them solve their problem.

Somehow, you need to provide them with a great experience. And that experience includes emotional support, too.

What's also difficult is that these types of interactions often happen over the phone, and virtual interactions are hard. You can only hear their voice; you can't see their faces. That means that it's easy to hide emotions. Further, only solving their problem may not calm them down. That's one part of it, but there may be more to it.

Success in these situations lies in exercising empathy. Here's how I handle these situations so that I can build a connection, develop a relationship, get an issue resolved, and resolve the emotional distress:

Step 1: Build rapport and a relationship with who is calling me. Before we get to business, we learn a bit about each other, talk about the weekend, our hobbies, and similarities. We build some social common ground. Although it sounds trite, talking about the weather or a movie can create a connection between people. If the person calling me for a solution is upset, this tactic can diffuse the tension a little bit, distract the person from their emotions for a few minutes, and changes the dynamic to go from someone needing help to two humans talking to each other. Being on the phone by its nature makes us anonymous. We need to shift from anonymity to connectedness.

Step 2. Get to business and learn about the problem. After some conversation, I find out why the person is calling and hear their story. I listen to them. Really listen. I learn what happened, how it happened, and why it needs to be fixed. I listen to find out how they are feeling about the problem, hearing emotional nuances over the phone. You can learn a lot about a person if you listen to them. Julian Treasure has a lot of information about listening. There's more here. And more here in the virtual team presentation too. And it helps you to communicate with someone better.

Step 3. I then ask why that person called to fix the problem. What's his motivation to make the call and get the issue fixed? According to Srini Pillay, fear may motivates us, but not in the way many think it does. We aren't motivated by the fear of missing out or not solving a problem. We are motivated by our own internal value system. This is different for everyone – some are motivated more by keeping their personal relationships, their job, their home and car, helping their children succeed. I try to learn what's driving someone's decisions – what's the factor behind why they make the decisions they do. And why they need the problem fixed.

Step 4. I consider past experiences I have had and how they are similar to what this person is experiencing now. I try to find an experience from my life that will relate to what this person is experiencing. Some things I will look for when I remember an experience that is similar to what this person is experiencing:

  1. I identify an experience that has a similar situation – not exactly the same, but from the same theme. For example, if someone calls looking for a solution to a problem because a large mailing was distributed with an error, I think about times where I had a very public error. I may not have had the same exact event happen, but I need to consider a similar situation in my life (it may be on a smaller or larger scale from my perspective, doesn't matter. I need to reference it for the emotions of it – see next step.)
  2. Then I remember the situation and events, but mostly I recollect how I felt at that moment. I'll remember the embarrassment, the nervousness to correct the problem, the pressure from my manager. It helps me frame how I communicate with the caller. I remember the types of statement that may have felt like attacks when they are simply comments. Or statements that felt critical and personal when they were factual. 
  3. Put myself in the right frame of mind to communicate with the person calling me. I will start communicating with this person as I wish someone would have communicated with me when I was in a similar situation. I think about the mood the person is in, the mood the person probably wishes he were in, and what I can say to help that person get into a better mood. I focus more on the emotions of the situation and try to help the person shift how they see the situation. Sure, a blunder can be embarrassing, but at the same time, if you can see the humor in it, you may not feel so ashamed and unable to function. Or if you know that it happens to all of us. Or if you know that no one blames only you. I think you see my point.

Step 5. I help them resolve the issue (and get them to feel better about themselves too). 

  • Avoid placing blame on the person calling. It's easy to blame someone for their problems. However, that doesn't solve the problem or make the person feel better about the issue. Instead, focus on the solution and talk to the person as you wish someone would talk to you in that situation. If the person has an issue that causes embarrassment, focus the conversation on removing the issue and remove the embarrassment. That, plus some fun, gentle banter, may help the person feel better by the end of the call
  • Focus on the new result – not the present moment. We all feel horrible right now in the present moment with the problem. Focus everyone's attention and energy on the solution and new result instead. It gives everyone hope and changes the tone.
  • Be positive and focus on the caller's personal strengths. Yes, you barely know this person. You only have been talking to that person for 10-15 minutes. But complement that person on what you are hearing about them right now. There is always something wonderful about someone new you meet and talk to – even over the phone. Complement their laugh, their insights, their creativity, their kindness. Comment on what's great about them. Your focus is to make that person see their greatness in a low moment.

Step 6: Wrap up the call. Make sure the person feels better. Or at least, sounds more positive and upbeat. Don't let people leave upset, even if you can't solve their problem on that same call. Give that caller some hope and a positive outlook that his situation will change and get better.

Leave people better than you found them. If you can resolve someone's issue, you have resolved half of the problem. If you can relate to the other person and make them feel better about their problem and life – you have done more than expected. 

Sometimes, people want to feel heard. And if you hear someone, empathize with them, and solve their problems, you have made a new friend and created a wonderful customer experience. Job well done!

Use empathy on support/service calls to build connections, improve someone’s day, and create a great experience