Centrichub 10 by ULOMA UMEANO

Centric Hub

Vol. 1 Issue 10

The Customer Service You Deserve -‐ The

CORE with Uloma

Lesson In Customer Service A Bri;sh Airways Experience -‐ Rob Cuesta

-‐ Nneka Obuotor

Having and displaying the right aFtude for crea;ng ‘OMG’ Customer Experiences -‐ Myles Makafui

Shaping Young Minds Towards Excellent CS Delivery

WELCOME to the

CENTRIC HUB! It ‘s a brand new exciting edition packed full with interesting articles

Customer Service Week was a blast!! We had an amazing outing with the Create Raving Fans training! It was a very wonderful experience, we want to thank everyone who took the time to stop by for your presence. The feedback from the training was awesome and we look forward to meeting up again in related circumstances. Special shout out to Union Bank, Enterprise Bank, Teknokleen, Jackson Etti & Edu, Renaissance Credit and Novo Health Africa. We would also like to thank Hamilton Lloyd & Associates and Hallmark Newspaper. We have a couple of pictures from the day. Enjoy! This is a very rich edition, we have loads of interesting articles. There is a write up from my Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) teacher, Rob Cuesta. Rob gave us permission to share an on-the-spot venting situation at the British Airways lounge. We also have fantastic articles from our training facilitators – Nneka Obuotor and Myles Makafui. You’ll be getting their perspective on Customer Service especially in Nigeria. The CORE is a must-read! Remember, we look forward to your feedback so please share! Check us out on Facebook and do take the time to like us. Enjoy! 2

Lessons in Customer Service A British Airways Experience

Rob Cuesta is an entrepreneur, speaker and author on leadership and marke5ng, and runner up in the 2010 UK “Coach of the Year” finals. He is CEO and Founder of Solu5on Academy Limited. If you want to learn how to deliver excepConal Customer Service there are two ways you can go. You can either study organisaCons that deliver excepConal service and copy them. Or you can find companies with truly atrocious Customer Service and do the exact opposite. Sadly, the laBer is far easier than the former. The reality is, Customer Service procedures are oAen wriBen by operaCons people in the comfort of a safe office, who have never used the service themselves, and if they have, it was in a role-‐play, simulated situaCon where everything went perfectly. They have seldom, if ever, experienced those procedures at their worst. A huge part of the problem is that customer service is run by ops not markeCng. So the overriding concern is how to make things efficient from the company's point of view, not the customer's. BriCsh Airways is a case in point. They are great at turning what should be a minor inconvenience and leKng it escalate to the point where the customer sees red. As I sit here in the lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5 waiCng for my eventual flight to New York, I have plenty of Cme to reflect on just how badly they do. (ConCnued overleaf)

Call Ada today on 08034017914 to schedule a training session

SO HERE ARE MY TOP TIPS FOR ACHIEVING EVEN A MINIMAL STANDARD OF SERVICE – BRITISH AIRWAYS PLEASE TAKE NOTE

1 When things aren’t going smoothly, the number one aim should be to

make things go smoothly for the customer, not the company. When things go wrong on your end, don't treat the paying customer as though they caused the problem themselves. If you are going to put someone on hold for 30 minutes, don't tell them you'll be '10 seconds‘. "What do you expect me to do about it?" should NEVER be used as a rhetorical quesCon. 9 Cmes out of 10, the answer to, “What do you expect me to do about it?" is actually just, “Show me that you heard me, that you're listening, that you have some understanding of how I feel, and that you actually give a ﬂying **** about me as a person“. Only employ staﬀ in Customer Service roles who actually like people and feel a need to help.

Do not label a desk, "Customer Services" unless you actually mean it. The words, "I'm sorry, sir, this is not a Customer Service Desk" sound parCcularly odd when the person saying them is siKng under a fluorescent screen with the words "Customer Services " wriBen in 15cm tall glowing white leBers. If you have to change a customer's level of service, there is only one direcCon that is acceptable (hint: if you answered "down", try again). Think about the impact of all the changes you make: e.g. moving a passenger onto an earlier flight means you also screw up their travel arrangements to the airport as well as your part of it. When you tell a customer that their problem has been sorted out, they should not expect to have to make a further 4 calls and spend 2 hours listening to your hold music, and sCll not have it sorted out. Once a member of your call centre staff has promised a customer an upgrade as compensaCon for wasCng 2 hours of their life, making them pay for 2 hours of non-‐geographic calls by mobile and sending their blood pressure somewhere north of "call the crash unit, NOW!", it should not be open to front-‐line staff to overrule that!

(ConCnued overleaf)

In summary, in the new world, Customer Service HAS to be part of markeCng. Having them under OperaCons is a hangover from the days when Customer Service problems could be contained to one individual and their friends. I love Seth Godin's model of how businesses work. In the old world it was a pyramid with Ops at the boBom, as the foundaCon of the pyramid, and sales & markeCng at the top. Businesses stuck in the old world can't shiA that foundaCon, because operaCons tends to be monolithic and set in their ways, so their markeCng gets out of sync with reality. The businesses that are most successful in the new economy build their business around the markeCng. If I had to sum it up in a few words I think it would be that doomed companies are built to promise what they can not deliver, whereas companies that thrive are built to deliver what they promise. -‐ Rob Cuesta

-‐ THE END -‐ 8

How about…

KISS

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID

SHAPING YOUNG MINDS TOWARDS

EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE DELIVERY The truth is that a glimpse of the individual's potenCal for excellence would already have been spoBed by the company, but it takes other factors to bring it to the forefront, one of those factors is formal training. There is a need for them to believe that Customer Excellence is of paramount importance, that without exhibiCng the Customer Service skills required, the company would ,at best, stagnate or worse, experience a rapid decline. Why? Because the world is at that stage were the customer is recognized as not just the key to profit explosion but also a medium that can be used to create awareness on behalf of the company thereby bringing in even more customers and therefore more profit! I believe that it requires skill, in-‐depth knowledge of subject maBer, hands on experience and yes, even ’’humor’’ to make an impact on the trainees as this would ensure that the message is communicated effecCvely. In addiCon, these customer service skills have to become second nature to us, so that even on our worse days we give our best, every Cme!

Nneka Obuotor Certified Customer Service Associate (CCSA) For Customer CentriCity Ltd.

In the course of facilitating, I have discovered that the easiest people to work with are individuals who are at the verge of joining the labour market as they can be likened to blank slates that one can impress the values of ones organization on.

LAUGH IT OFF

The parCcipants are at that stage were you can get them to follow your way of thinking and follow it without too many quesCons asked. There's always something new to learn from each group of parCcipants and one of such things is never to under esCmate their intelligence and ability, because the ones that are determined, eager and passionate about customer service, would forge ahead and become a force to reckon with. We try as much as possible, to leave the parCcipants with this message; "At the end of the day you have to decide who you bring to work everyday, the "YOU" that is friendly, understanding , passionate and respecnul of customers or the "YOU" that is okay to be paid for just doing the job" I leave you to guess who gets promoted at the end of the day.

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Having And Displaying The Right Attitude For Creating ‘OMG’ Customer Experiences -Myles Makafui

The happy customer is the money! -‐ Every organiza;on that wants to remain relevant in today’s dynamic and extremely compe;;ve business market should keep that at the center of all they do.

Business has evolved and we are presently in the age of the customer, in a relaConship-‐management economy where the customer ulCmately determines the direcCon of every business. Every organizaCon MUST become a customer-‐ driven organizaCon. Superior Customer Service raises the level of customer retenCon, repeat business and customer advocacy, which are vital if any business not only wants to survive but grow in a recession. Today’s customers are more informed, more enlightened and have more choices. Therefore, in today’s dynamic and highly compeCCve business market, organizaCons must strive to deliver excepConal Customer Service to be in business. Therefore, today’s customers are not only interested in the product they are being offered but all the addiConal elements of service that they receive, from the greeCng they receive when they enter your premises, to the help they receive they have a complaint. It is also interesCng to see how social media has influenced business. I recently stumbled on a website called pissedcustomer.com, where customers who have experienced bad service could share their experiences with the whole world. TwiBer, Facebook and other social media sites have created a perfect avenue for everyone to share their experiences as customers – for beBer or worse! The development should put all service providers on their toes to ensure that customer’s don’t ever take away a negaCve impression from any interacCon with them. Most companies within every industry, offer very similar products and services, therefore it is only superior Customer Service that can differenCate you and create a compeCCve advantage for your organizaCon. This is why making customer saCsfacCon an organizaCon goal is simply not good enough. The goal of every organizaCon that seeks success must be to go beyond the expected, to WOW the customer, to give the customer unforgeBable experiences and make every moment of interacCon, a moment of magic!

Most organiza;ons make very striking service promises to the public and these promises shape customer’s expecta;ons and give them certain speciﬁcs to look out for in every interac;on with these organiza;ons.

For instance, when a bank says, ‘We are the one-‐customer bank’ or ‘Saying yes to your needs’, those are very strong service promises that have to be reinforced by posiCvely outrageous Customer Service delivery. There are two major elements of Customer Service – personality and skill. It’s nice to possess the skill, to know the greeCng procedures, crisis management procedures, to have knowledge of what to do at every given point in Cme. However, its personality that brings everything to life. It’s our personaliCes as service providers that add value to our skills – it’s all about ATTITUDE. As human beings, we are products of our environment and for some of us that have grown up in a place like Lagos, we display a bit of aggressiveness and unfriendliness. It’s so bad that when we meet people who are very nice, we become suspicious. The average person that grows up in such an environment has liBle or no interpersonal skills. It is important to have the understanding that every business with customers is in the ‘People’ business and therefore you must possess the right aKtude. It is not just about greeCng but how you greet; it is about communicaCng the willingness to help with every part of you. There are basically three kinds of aKtude, posiCve, negaCve and neutral. However, being neutral is being indifferent which is very negaCve and so your aKtude is either posiCve or negaCve. AKtude is not a giA, it’s a choice. We may not be able to tailor-‐ make situaCons in life, but we can choose how to respond to them. In his book, ‘The Seven Habits Of Highly EffecCve People’, Stephen R. Covey talked about the law of proacCvity. He said that people can be grouped in two categories, reacCve and proacCve. ReacCve people are affected by weather, when the weather is good, they are good but when it is bad, it affects their mood. On the other hand, proacCve people carry their own weather. 14

ReacCve people are also aﬀected by the social weather, when people treat them well, they feel good, if not, they feel bad. No one can hurt you without your permission and no one can take your happiness if you don’t give it to them. Between sCmuli and response, you have the ability to choose!

Myles E. Makafui

Growth Strategist™

Wake up every day with a decision to give your best when interacCng with customers. It also helps for service providers to adopt the policy that says, ‘The Customer is always right!’ The above statement doesn’t means that customers are always right literally. SomeCmes, customers make some demands that are products of assumpCons, wild imaginaCons and wishful thinking. ‘The Customer is always right’, is a corporate cliché intended to give service providers the consciousness that customers are the ones that determine the direcCon of the business and exhorts them to give top priority to customer delight. There are three rules that help guide service providers to possess the right aKtude when interfacing with customers. The first rule is the golden rule which says, ‘Treat others the way you want to be treated’. We are all customers and if we put ourselves in the shoes of the customer, it will be easier to treat them well. As a basic human need, we all want to feel worthwhile, respected, special and important. We don’t like to be ignored, or treated with disdain. If we do some bit of introspecCon, it will help us relate beBer with our customers. The second rule says, ‘Treat others the way they want to be treated’. It is important for us to go beyond the basic customer needs and know our customer as individuals. We have to know their needs, their concerns, their interests, their past experiences etc. This helps us pre-‐empt their needs and serve them just exactly the way they want. Finally, the third rule, if we aim is to wow the customer, to leave the customer saying ‘Oh my God!’ then we definitely have to ‘Treat others the way they don’t even know they ought to be treated’ Always remember, that the customer is the job, the customer is the money, and the customer is the boss. Keep making your customers happy and keep the service flag flying.

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THE

“

I have stopped trying to understand the Nigerian Consumer Behaviour... I just take what I see

”

The Customer Service You Deserve Flying through Heathrow last summer to the United States, my sons and I could not help but no;ce the appalling service received from Bri;sh Airways. This is an airline that probably makes a significant income from the Nigerian route especially with the nausea;ng incident in recent ;mes of oversubscrip;on of First Class and Business Class seats. I was told once of how the Abuja flight was boarding and Business Class passengers were encouraged to join the Economy Class queue which was prac;cally empty. I have stopped trying to understand the Nigerian Consumer Behaviour... I just take what I see! So, here we are, flying BA and the first thing we no;ce is that the crew are at an average age of fily. We have "near-‐geriatrics" serving us, at a ;me that other more compe;ng airlines have the best looking young guys and girls as their cabin crew. Then we no;ced that there were no overnight packs -‐ socks, eye-‐patches and ear stoppers etc. I asked and was told, "...we discon;nued it for this class." I guess she realized how that sounded aler a while so she added, with a forced smile that hardly got to her eyes, and a high false-‐pitched tone, "I'll see if I can find a few packs for you, love!" Too late! I already felt very unworthy, "unspecial" and like a cast-‐away. Shortly aler, I heard that similar situa;ons were experienced on KLM too. What was happening here? Companies, in this case airlines, we're lowering their standards because their customers were not demanding their rights. Or worse, they had sized the customer up and decided that the customer was not good enough for the service promised by their brand. Nasty! You begin to ask if brand erosion at this scale is a sensible opportunity cost to pay for, “Undeserving customers". I was at a 5-‐Star hotel for dinner 2 nights ago here in Lagos and a waiter responded to a guest and con;nued a long, sustained discussion in vernacular. Both the guest and I agreed later that we were, "unpleasantly" surprised at this. In an instant, our percep;on of the hotel fell from 5-‐star to "no star"! Perhaps the waiter felt he was giving fantas;c service by offering vernacular as a communica;on op;on. In my books, he failed to represent the brand in its pure form! Was he giving the customer the service he felt the customer deserved? Then we have the companies that act as though the concept of Customer Service is too far-‐ fetched and rich for them. "Aunty they are coming. Let them change their "cloth" and eat first!" "My friend, it is 9 o'clock and I have been here since 7.30 wai;ng for you all to come to work!" To which she answered, to my horror, "Aunty, let them eat o, or they will not do your hair fine-‐fine!" At no point did she manage the customers expecta;ons. At no ;me did she at least get up from the front desk and (even) pretend that she was geFng the girls to be faster. The customer was treated like she does not have a choice... As usual! Companies may get away with trea;ng a customer badly in the short term. They may not come down from the air cral at that instant. Or refuse the wine from a, “Used-‐to-‐be" 5-‐Star waiter, since it has already been opened. Or she may s;ll wait an extra hour for the girls to decide that it is ;me to start on her hair. But there is always tomorrow. That is when the effect of today comes to play! And guess what, that's when the real power plays up. That is when customers vote with their feet! Are you being served?

Ulom

A Publica;on of Customer Centricity Limited Contact Address: 15 Biaduo Road, Oﬀ Keﬃ Street, South-‐ West, Ikoyi, Lagos. Nigeria Twiser: @c_centricity Facebook: hsps://www.facebook.com/pages/Customer-‐CentriCity-‐Limited/ Email: www.customercentricityltd.com Telephone: +234 0 7065559525