Appearing busy: The right thing to do?

So today, after re-establishing myself as a private music tutor, I took a trip down memory lane remembering all of the experiences I had talking to other teachers about their experiences, what to look out for, all the usual and I clearly remembered one thing I was told: "Always appear to be busy".

My interpretation is that the purpose of doing this would be to exemplify the busy schedule you've created by being a fantastic teacher. This makes a lot of sense. If you're the owner of a business, especially a service based business, you don't ever want to come across desperate by offering any time under the sun. Your customers will lose faith in a service provider who is clearly not servicing any one.. possibly because the service is bad? No. Probably because the service is bad. 

The real problem with phrases like this (always appear busy) is that they don't outline the course of action you can take. In one extreme you could simply turn away "sales" by pretending to be so busy that it constricts  your availability and leads to inflexibility that looses you the sale. On the other hand, you could pretend to be really busy but then under questioning actually be available any time day or night for this person:

"Chris speaking"
"Hi, yes, I'm wondering if you have any time available for another singing pupil?"
"Ah, well, the thing is I'm pretty much booked up at the moment except for ... Wednesday at 7pm for an hour. How does that suit you?"
"Hmmm, not so good. Are there no other days you can do?"
"Well, I don't really like doing this but I could do Thursday at 8pm?"
"No good either. What about Monday at 7?"
"Yep that's absolutely fine! See you then.."

*20 minutes later*

"Chris speaking.."
"Hi Chris, sorry we can't do Monday actually, can we make that Tuesday at 7pm instead?"
"Sure, sure that's no problem."

*Monday night*

"Chris speaking.."
"Chris, I'm so sorry, can we reschedule tomorrow to Friday at 3am?"
"Yep absolutely that's fine. See you then."
and so on...

So although they've got what they want, your credibility has gone right out the window and it also makes you look a bit arrogant. Hopefully the customer will be too happy about the prospect of getting your service when they wanted it, even when you said you were totally inflexible.

The OTHER downside of appearing too busy is that you make yourself inaccessible and almost give off the impression that it's a privilege to have your service - something no customer should ever feel...

I called a service provider and asked them if they could do a certain day and time. They then said to me they'd have to phone me back once they'd checked... I didn't get a return call in about 20 minutes. I couldn't believe it. Here I am, in the process of calling a list of service providers, I'm not going to put all my hopes on just one, and this one has actually put the phone down on me. It's not insulting, it's stupid. The customer is on the phone saying "When can you take my money?" and the service provider is saying "Let's not speak for a while until I'm ready". So yes, the inevitable happened. As I was waiting for a call back I had spoken to another service provider who I quite liked the sound of and I booked with them.

If you're a service provider, make sure you can take a booking at any time, otherwise, you'll lose customers and possibly provide bad customer service.

So is appearing busy right or wrong? It would be good to see a discussion about it below, but my opinion is that it's wrong to appear busy if you're not actually busy. Basically, it's wrong to lie. If you're not busy then phrase it in a positive way for the customer. You don't have to say "I have absolutely no customers and haven't for the past few months so you can pick any time you want!" You could say "Luckily I've got a free spell coming up in the next few weeks." Or something like that anyway. Remember, phrasing it so you're telling your customer your free availability is good for them is the key.

I personally operate with a few days in mind of when I'd like to teach and the hours I want to teach in and try to stick to those. When I started out last time I would regularly say "I teach on Xday, Yday and Zday between 4pm and 8pm, would a time in those slots suit you?" So already I tell them I'm professional with a clear structure... and so on.

Sure, this isn't a black and white topic, but what do you think? Right or wrong?

Push? Expect push back!

In my wanderings through life, space and time, I’ve learnt a few things. Some of them about physics! Where physics seems to directly apply to customer service is Newton’s 3rd law:

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” - If you push, expect push back!

One of the terrible things about pushy sales people is their inability to see that the potential customer is not interested. The whole process of trying to sell stops becoming about what the customer needs and becomes motivated entirely by selfish affirmation. Affirming that the sales person has the power or ability to make that person buy. This strategy might work for one off purchases, but it leaves the customer feeling hollow. They never really wanted the product, so although at the time the sales person did a good job of explaining why they should want it, that customer will eventually revert back to feeling that it was an unnecessary purchase as all the same doubts come back in.

I’d compare this experience to a salesperson trying to sell a ship. The customer doesn’t want it and for every negative reason the customer gives for not wanting it, the ship gets a hole. Sure a salesperson can plug 1 hole, maybe 2, but eventually you’ll just run out of fingers. The salesperson then demonstrates a clear disinterest in what the customer actually wants and the whole customer service situation flips. Suddenly, the salesperson is the one demanding something from the customer.

Most customers aren’t stupid and they’ll spot this shift. Suddenly the customer will feel uncomfortable and depending on the person, they may become aggressive, defensive or passive leading to a shallow sale. A business does not want any of their customers feeling any of those things. They need to feel positive about buying the item, then they’ll feel positive about your brand.

How do you make someone positive about the product? Is that the question you’re asking? If so, who benefits from the answer to that question? You or the customer?

Every question you ask and every answer you find should always lead to the customer having a better experience. This then leads to your business becoming trusted because people know you’re out to enrich their lives through the products you sell, not just enrich your own. Now of course the answer has to work out financially. A business can’t just give all their customers free products, that clearly doesn’t make sense. But what does make sense is the attitude being about enriching the customer experience.

The question I always ask myself is this: “How, with the range of products I sell, can I make this customers life better?” To answer this, you need to have paid attention to your customer. Asked them what they want, what they want from the product they want. If it’s a lifestyle product, understanding their emotional response to products is important, so ask them questions around that. A lifestyle product is all about feeling like you’ve achieved the aspiration, so get to understanding what they want. If you’re trying to hard-sell a lifestyle product, then you have just failed. They must feel good about it because that is how they’re aspiring to feel. If they don’t want it, convert your energies into selling something they do want.

In conclusion, hard selling, whilst sometimes good for the immediate figures work out disastrously in the long term. It only serves to build the wall between you and your customer. Break down the wall, get on their side and guide them to the best product you offer which suits their needs. That is good customer service.

Social networking: The death of the official complaint?

We brits have a great capacity for passive aggression. It’s in our genes. From the moment we’re born we’re cursing away under our breath, being generally hard done by the world from our peers to our bosses. Combine this national trait with social networking and … oh dear… We’ve all seen Facebook statuses and tweets where our friends have vented their frustrations without direction. This is the path of least resistance. It relieves us of our stress without any obligation or responsibility to follow it up and “make it better”.

So to jump right in: As a business owner, it’s time to face up to the fact that if someone has a problem with your company, the first thing they’re likely to do is talk about it online on Twitter, Facebook, Google Businesses/Maps, Trip Advisor, or any of the vast array of vent-sites (aka review sites) available. The 2^nd thing they’ll do is talk to their friends about it face to face. Then if it’s a really serious issue, something verging on illegal, they’ll make an official complaint.

This is a terrible thing for business as by passing the official complaint route, which requires the person to become responsible and accountable for what they’re saying, it means that businesses can’t react to their customers feedback as readily as they should. If a customer has a terrible meal at a restaurant, they may say “Oh it was nice..” when the waiter asks for their opinion, but may log onto twitter immediately afterwards and proclaim “Pretty sure I just ate some under-cooked road kill at xxxx restaurant” and then do the same on Google maps/business.

What does this all mean then? Well, the acceptance that most of your customers may not come straight to you if they have a problem (especially if yours is an infrequently used service or retail business) is a good place to start. Waiting for a customer to complain isn’t something you can “do” anyway, so that requires no work on your part. So what can you do?

• Look at the most used websites in your sector for user reviews and go through your businesses reviews on a regular basis. There’s a misconception that once something is on the internet, it can never be taken down. The reviewer/customer can take back their reviews on most sites so the first thing you have to try and do is contact them. Most websites now require some sort of 3^rd party account to verify that they’re a real person, like a Facebook account or a Google account so you can contact them this way. But be very careful. You will be sending them a personal message, so keep it respectful and definitely don’t send any more than one e-mail. Any more and you’ll be harassing them, which will only lead to more bad reviews.
• Approaching someone who’s left a negative review on-line can be quite disarming. When someone screams into the abyss that is the internet they rarely expect to get any form of response, so when they do, it’s a big shock. Use that shock to instil a positive association over the negative one that’s already been created.
• Respond to the reviews, all the reviews if you can, yes, even the good ones. It’s a perfect opportunity to show that your business goes beyond the cash register, something that customers like to see and which will guarantee you their custom again.
• Don't recruit friends and family to write good reviews to counteract the bad ones. Don't let your first response be to "fight back". This isn't a fight, it's an important part of your business. Take a look at this. This is a prime example of fight-back mentality. I wrote a damning review for a service I received. Then suddenly new 5 star reviews began being posted. In total 3 5 star reviews in 3 days dated 24th, 25th and 26th July 2008. Your customers will pick up on strange patterns of reviewer behaviour, especially if there seems to be a credible bad review followed by short, sharp overwhelmingly positive ones.
• Swallow your pride and ask for a second chance. If it’s that customers first time, apologise and invite them back; show them just how good your service really is. Then watch as the review changes to a positive, or even neutral… anything but negative. If it doesn't change, then you’ve probably not met their expectations. If your reviews are overwhelmingly positive, then maybe their expectations are too high. If they’re average overall, then you’ve done something wrong.
• Be concerned, don’t act concerned – people know the difference. If you’re not concerned about what your customers think, then you’d better start writing your exit strategy right now.

Master your strategy when it comes to dealing with review sites and you can rest assured that you are engaging with customers who have either turned their back on your business or who are, or may become, well connected ambassadors for your business.

Client services: Less is more?

There’s a difference between being a specialist or a show off and there’s a fine line between winning your clients’ confidence or getting them lost.

When you’re offering an on-going service to a client the one thing you can guarantee they’ll look for in you is peace of mind. The knowledge that their money is safe in your hands and that the service you’re providing them is the best they can receive. Where some fall down is on the point of how much information to load onto the client.

Being the service provider requires you to be constantly balancing the client needs and expectations whilst trying to always surpass them, but always operating in accordance with the policy of the company. It’s at this point where the line blurs and it’s important to be receptive to what your client wants to hear or, more importantly, what they need to hear. They obviously want to hear that you can do what they’ve asked, but do they need to hear how you’ll do it or what’s involved for the service to be of the standard they’re expecting?

How I see it, expertise =

1. Knowledge of the service you're providing, made up of the products within the service
2. Knowledge of how your company operates and manages those services
3. Knowledge of your sector

Clients may value hearing more about one of these points than the other. For example, a client may want to know that the service they’re getting is up-to-date and in line with what others in the same sector are getting, but they may not care about how your company will manage to get them that level of service (other than whether you can or not!). Some may want to know exactly how you plan to deliver.

The reason why I’m writing this article? Managing the contracts of service providers for my current employer has given me a wide view of service provider styles – from the new-business style service providers to the tried and tested service providers. Over both spectrums, I really don’t mind who I deal with. Sure I like to be called Mr Matthews, or Sir if I’m feeling particularly haughty. Sometimes I like to hear “Hey, Chris!” The one thing that really sets the providers apart though is whether I ever feel the need to tell them to stop talking. Why stop talking? Because I simply don’t need to know how they’re going to get me what I want. All I need to know is that it will be done and it will be on time.

The problem with this sort of customer service experience is that now I dread talking to these service providers because it's inevitable that I will have to interrupt them at some point and basically tell them to cease!

In essence, the client relationship manager/account manager’s position is basically a fixer and a reference point. Client tells manager/company they want X. Manager/company gets them X with a sprinkling of expertise in the form of advice. If the customer wants more information on how, then give it to them, but don't burden your clients with your companies policies and structure.

And so ends this post…

PS - Why the picture? Because a train is a good analogy for this, I think. The system it runs on is massively complicated, but the average commuter couldn't care less. They just want a train that will get them from A to B. "Let someone else worry about how it's all working, as long as I get to where I want to be on time that's all I care about."

Your comments are always welcome!

Outsourcing vs Time (more of a diary entry)

As you may have noticed, it's been a while since my last post. That's due to numerous things but in my defense, it does say sporadic over there on the right! You wont see excuses, so let's get straight into it.

A major challenge facing me at the moment is a lack of technical knowledge in game development. I don't know the first thing about making a game. So I've been faced with 2 routes:

1. Learn how to make the game
2. Pay someone to make the game

At the moment, I'm on number 2. There are a few reasons for this:

Time is losing or winning in this industry.

I use twitter as a news resource for the niche area of social gaming and MMO industry info. Every morning when I get into twitter I read stories about how a social games company has secured $X million, how Zynga have released XVille and have a trillion paying subscribers after only 3 seconds and so on.. This in part makes me very excited and spurs me on by proving that there's interest both from gamers and investors. It also petrifies me and makes me question "Am I already too late??".

My aim is to see my name or company name up there with the news that it's secured investment. But every second that the game isn't up there making news, the potential for it making a splash when it does get released gets smaller by the day. This is worrying.

So as time is not a luxury I can afford at this stage, I have to outsource. I have to get people in who know what I want and know how to get it for me. Sure I may have to sell a kidney to get there, but when the game picks up and its making a substantial profit I can buy 10 kidneys... I'm sure I can make room for them in me somewhere...

But that's the point when it comes to outsourcing. I can either sacrifice time or money, but given that the 2 are inseperable in the business world, I'd serve to lose far more by spending time trying to learn and potentially missing the boat. By outsourcing it gets done fast by people with far more experience than I.

Decision made...

Making the decision to outsource is pretty simple. If you have the skills, or don't but have the time to learn them, then you do it yourself. If you don't have time or the skills then you outsource. The next phase is finding the expertise. This has taken me such a long time that I wonder whether I could have learnt how to make this game in the time I've spent waiting for the bids to come in - and to be honest, they're not beating down my door to take my money. I've posted ad's on boards and tried to seek certain developers but it seems that most developers are scared to take on the larger projects.

In total, I've been looking for a developer for the past 3 months. 3 MONTHS! It kills me to type it let alone say it. Ergh! It's taken so long that I often question whether it's even a good idea. It's difficult to sit by and read lots of information about the bustling world of social game development and not see your idea being taken up in the whirlwind.

(Warning, film comparison. Skip this para if you don't like films)

Think about the classic film Twister when they're trying to get Dorothy to fly.

She just wont fly! She's at the base of the tornado and it just wont take her... but she's right there! It's a force of nature which just sucks things off the ground and propels them into the air. That's what I feel my idea is like at the moment. It's Dorothy and the social game industry is the tornado and I'm standing 50 meters away screaming "TAKE IT!!! TAKE IIIT!" (in my mind).

So will you save time by outsourcing? No one can say for definite. It depends who's looking at the website that day or how willing you are to peddle your idea to some companies. What is for sure is that there should be a plan B. What happens if, like me, 3 months down the line your throat is red raw from the "TAKE IT!" screaming? Well, I've not even worked that out yet... Perhaps I should get myself a book on making flash games whilst the Libraries still exist. I'd be happy to read some of your suggestions.

Really, from my experience, outsourcing is not "the answer" to the problem. Sure it's great if you can get someone instantly, but really I've found it easier to find willing investors than I have companies willing to take on the challenge! So be prepared to wait a lot longer than you initially expect, I wasn't!

Why customer service should take pride of place in your strategy

In a world where everything is on sale in some way, there is one thing which you can guarantee will bring customers back: Good customer service. No, not good, amazing – Amazing customer service.

In some companies’ yearly targets the most you’ll see is: “Improve customer service”. Most will probably boil down to those three words, given the amount of detail some companies put in. Let’s get this straight as well, I’m not just talking about major companies, I’m talking about small independent shops or e- businesses. Some may not even have a map for their customer service.

We all know the success of any e- business is down to the ease of the customer experience. You see, you click, you buy. But what’s beyond that? In days gone by you could get away with having people that just keep your company out of court when things go wrong, but not anymore. There are hundreds of user review websites out there now and they are gathering ever more of a following as people are far more scrutinous of online buying than they ever were.

I work up in The City of London and wanted to join a gym. First thing I did? Google Maps. I found my workplace and typed in “gym”. Clicked on a few gyms in the local area to bring up the basic info and only clicked on the websites of the few which had more than 4 stars. Why? Because each of those little stars is worth far more to me as a potential customer than the £/$thousands spent on a website. Those stars are given by real people with real opinions, not a PR/Marketing team.

You can’t buy those stars, you can only earn them. How do you earn them? By giving those customers who’ve handed over their money the best experience possible.

No blog can tell you what your company needs to do to improve your service levels, or what targets to set, but let me tell you what I think you should consider:

1. Goal setting. It’s of paramount importance, as with any business planning, to set a target to be reached. If you don’t, you will never know when you’ve achieved what you set out to do. However, customer service is not quantifiable, so make it quantifiable. How? Read on.
2. Go to your customer. Don’t wait for customers to come to you. You’ll only ever get complaints unless someone’s in a particularly good or charitable mood. Those little things which the customer feels aren’t serious enough to raise will go unheard and your reputation will begin to whither. That doesn’t mean hound them day and night, but showing your customers that you care about how they felt about their dealings with you goes a very long way. Don’t forget it needs to be simple, quick and unobtrusive otherwise people wont bother. Your customers don’t want to do your work for you, so there needs to be incentive. If it’s fast then it doesn’t cost them time. Something as simple as a 1-10 scale with an option of whether they want a call back to discuss any problems is great.
3. Don’t settle for anything less than perfect. There’s no use having a scale or a measure of customer service if you’re not aiming to surpass it. You’re also in a bad place if your goal is to simply not dip below a number. Remember you’re not setting a minimum requirement.
4. Be proactive, not complacent. The idea of maintaining good customer service is what makes companies complacent. Always, always, always proactively aim to achieve better customer service.
5. Talk to your staff. Your staff and colleagues are your resource. Ask them what problems they encounter with customers, what customers are regularly asking for. Use this feedback to help plan your strategy.
6. Incentivise your staff. Every employer wants staff who give 100% but more often than not this isn’t the case. The worst customer service I’ve received seems to stem from staff who couldn’t care less. Customer service is about providing a positive experience. You will not achieve this by threatening your staff with punitive measures if their service target dips below your accepted level. They will resent you and resent the act of providing good customer service. Give them incentives. Something as simple as “Employee of the month” can be very effective if there’s a clear structure as to how each employee is rewarded. Work out what incentivises your staff and play to it. Young staff, older staff, married staff, family staff, single staff… If incentives fail across the board, question your incentives. If incentives fail with individuals, think hard about whether they fit their role or your company. Happy, respectful staff make customers happy.
7. Transparency. Provide your whole company and your customers (if you’re confident!) with a clear message which shows how highly you regard their custom and your customer service. A service graph on your website showing your “rating” with customers is a great way to show this and is a brilliant sales tool.
8. Keep up to date with your companies ratings on popular ratings websites. Set aside time to check weekly or every 2 weeks the reviews your customers are giving you. Encourage them to review you on the websites.
9. Staff meetings. Whether you’re one of a 2 person team or the head of a 3,000 strong company, your staff or departments should have some sort of team meeting and team building at least once a month, ideally weekly. Again, make them look forward to it – maybe do it over company paid breakfast? Give your staff a chance to share their experiences of customers and their issues, how they handled and resolved it. Use this time to evaluate your staff and your road map. Is it working? Are they getting it? Do the customers know about your strategy? Is it too much too soon? How can your team improve? How can the road map improve?
10. Language. How your staff communicate with your customers is important. Be aware of the image that is portrayed by different terminology. Having staff referring to customers in ways like "Mate" "Buddy" "Love" immediately tells them that they don't respect them, that they are equals. I think "I'm not your mate, you're here to help me." Language like "Sir" "Madam" and "Thank you" "You're welcome" "Please" go so far. You don't see those words round much nowadays so their value is high and they are free to use - so make sure your staff make good use of them. Age or social profiling can back fire. It's best to play safe with the Sir's etc. Be aware that not every 18-30 year old wants to be referred to as "mate".

Create a strategy. Commit to surpassing what is expected of your customer service. Clearly show yourself and your staff how you’re going to achieve it. Be prepared to review it whenever you have to.

Thanks for reading,

Chris

How it all began

Well, not “all” but at least the chapter in my life which closely relates to the nature of this blog…

Let’s apply some context first. I’m a young guy and in what you could say is potentially my “career” job. Left University in 2009 and have found myself working for a lovely organisation.

I’ve only worked for a few companies in my life so far, 7 in total. From temporary jobs to “strap yourself in boy, you’re in it for the long haul” type jobs. Of those 7 companies I only ever felt any sort of affinity with 3. In those 3 companies I really noticed when things just weren’t running right, when staff weren’t pulling their weight, when managers were making wrong decisions, where unnecessary procedures were slowing things down and costing money, where strategy was flawed.

In these companies I was never in a position to action any real change, only propose it. Leaving such proposals at the feet of already busy management usually always ended in not much change. Being the bottom of the bottom didn’t help either. These were all facts which I was aware of at the time but only now I see as clear signs of a budding business mind, but as is the nature of the machine sometimes, they remained un-nurtured.

Entrepreneurialism not being supported or even discussed in Schools I’d say had a pretty significant impact on my direction in life. To go from the school system, a place where your every move is coordinated and out of your control to “real-life” where you’re pretty much free to do anything is a big step. All I knew was there were 2 options: University or get a job. The decisions laid at my feet as a young man were which box to fit in. Typing this in our current climate where jobs are scarce I dread to think how hopeless the current school leavers feel, although with the publicity surrounding programmes such as The Apprentice and Dragons Den, a lot of the work schools should be doing to inspire young people to create their own businesses is already being done by the idiot box.

I didn’t set out to write a biography or talk about the education system and it's failings in relation to nurturing young business minds, so I’ll skip to the moment which changed my life. It was such a simple reply to a little moan.

“Why is there not a game where you can do … ?”

“If it bothers you so much why don’t you make one?”

Comments like that can easily be left in conversation. Reading it now, it seems so obvious that I should have just made it myself. But to me, someone who was so used to the idea of money coming from a defined employer, the idea of creating something which doesn’t exist yet to fill a gap in the market was mind blowing. Previously I’d assumed that there were all these clever people walking around having an idea every minute, that this sort of thing was best left to companies with their millions of pounds and army of staff, but suddenly at that moment I realised that I had been entirely wrong and that it was moments like this which have defined the course of people’s lives and history.

I look back 3 years ago, before the big idea, at that point in my younger life and wish I could initiate that spark which started me off on this journey into business. I wish I could say to myself only 3 years ago “What you have got is what it takes to start your own business, make your own money and be your own boss. Do not think you can’t do it, that it wont happen or that it’s not the best option.”

My hope is that 3 years from now, I wont look back at my 25 year old self and think “God, how much time did you waste!” This is what kicks me up the backside every time I slow down. It works so well for me because I hate having regrets. I still cringe at things I did 10 years ago, even though they’re hardly worth remembering.

I’d recommend everyone to search themselves for something which can act as a reminder why you’re doing this and why you must see it through.

Of all the things I've experienced so far, some of which I'll talk about in other posts, I've worked out a few things which may be valuable to some of you reading this. These are all things which are important to me and have led me to this point in my life.

1. Surround yourself with positive people. I don't mean yes men, I mean people who wont just shoot down your idea because they can't be bothered to understand how it will work.
2. Set yourself targets firmly attached to dates. This is something I wish I would have done a while ago. When you're enthused by an idea it's impossible to think that you could lose that flame, but eventually when you have to start working on it, the enthusiasm can wane. Having a set list of tasks to accomplish by certain dates helps to keep you in check. The problem with starting a business, especially when you have a day job, is that there's no real consequence for not achieving your goal. This is where self discipline is a must. Anyone can say they're going to finish something in a month, but you are the only person who's going to tell you off - and I think you might go a bit softer on yourself! Favouritism in the workplace, *tut*.
3. Talk to people about the idea. Don't be afraid to talk to people you trust about what you're doing; family and friends. Maybe not the guy on the train, but the more people you talk to about it the more ideas you'll get and the more clearly your idea will formulate in your mind. Everyone will have a different priority list of what's important so the questions you get from one person may be totally different to ones from another. I'd say, looking over the course of my journey, the idea I had started off more like a splat but by talking to friends and family it became very nearly a perfect circle.
4. Get someone else on board. No one can do everything and eventually you will probably need help. If you can do everything you need to do to succeed in your business then that's brilliant, but I can't. So team up with someone who has the skills which you don't have and who you feel will share your dream for your product.

Well that's my first blog post finished. Took a lot longer than I thought it would but enjoyed the reminiscing and at least this can act as the intro to my autobiography when I'm 65 and the richest man in the world, ever.

Thanks for reading,

Chris