How to be a Zero Risk Company

5 Quick Tips to Help you Make Price Irrelevant

1) Customer Service Feature Story

It is easy to have excellent customer service when everything is humming along. Which typically happens during your slowest times. Perfect world circumstances are rare and the exception. You can count on human error, call-offs, customers being late, technology breakdowns, service interruptions, out-of-stock items, and undependable vendors. Is your company prepared? Is your customer-facing employee trained and ready? Every business knows something will go wrong this week. Can someone tell me why most employees act like a deer in headlights when they do occur? 

Being a world-class customer service organization means you are zero risk to do business with. Being zero risk doesn’t mean you will never drop the ball or screw up. What zero risk does mean is: A) you drop the ball less than anyone else, and B) when you do, you have protocols in place to make it right.

One of the best benefits of building strong relationships with customers comes when you inevitably screw up. Customers are so much more forgiving and understanding of mistakes if you have built a relationship. When something doesn’t go right, you have a golden opportunity to demonstrate to your customers that you pose zero risk to them. What does zero risk look like? As a customer, it means you are sure that when you deal with a company and something goes wrong, they will make it right. 

An Opportunity to be a Hero

When a problem arises with a customer, it gives us the opportunity to own that customer for life. I have always had a saying in my businesses, “If it gets to me, it is free.” This was meant to make sure all my employees, including those on the front line, take care of anything that arises. No one wants to contact the GM or call the owner. If they do, clearly the situation has gotten out of hand. I also have a saying: “You will never get in trouble for something you do, only for something you don’t do.” Meaning—just take care of the customer. Be naive instead of paranoid. Trust the customer. 

“Don’t punish 98 percent of your customers for what you are afraid 2 percent might try to do.”

One of my favorite all-time customer service recovery stories happened early on in my career back when I was involved day-to-day in my first business, John Robert’s Spa. A client called me to tell me one of my hairdressers had gotten hair color on her blazer. I apologized and offered to pay to get her blazer cleaned. The client said it could not be cleaned; the stain was permanent. I again apologized and offered to replace the blazer, but she said it was part of an outfit no longer available, and the outfit was worthless now that the blazer was ruined. I told her I would put a check in the mail for the cost of the outfit. She was stunned and told me it cost $250 and asked if I wanted to see the blazer or receipt. I told her neither was necessary, and she seemed extremely happy. After we hung up, I looked up her history in our computer system and found that she had been coming to our salon about seven times a year for the last several years. I also noticed she had never referred anyone. So I sent her the check and included a John Robert’s gift certificate for the trouble and inconvenience that we had caused. 

About a year later, I was curious if we had retained her. When I looked her back up, I saw that she was still coming regularly. However, I was shocked to see she had also referred eighteen new customers that year. What kind of advertising could I buy for $250 that would get me eighteen new customers? I told all my stylists to start spilling color on everyone’s clothes!  

While it is not your Fault, it is your Problem

I took my son Johnni to Disney World when he was six years old. We both stood in line for the Twilight Zone, one of the Disney-MGM Studios rides, for more than 50 minutes. When we finally got to the front of the line, the staff member stopped us because Johnni was too small for the ride. He showed me the measuring stick, and we saw he was right. For my son’s safety, he had to be at least 40 inches high. My son was almost 2 inches too short. The staff member apologized and said we must have missed the signs along the line. We really couldn’t argue, but after waiting in line for almost an hour for a ride he really wanted to go on, Johnni was about to cry. 

The Disney employee bent down to my teary-eyed son, asked his name, and said, “I am going to give you a certificate with your name on it. This certificate says the next time you come to Disney, you will probably be tall enough to get on Twilight Zone and you won’t have to wait in line. All you have to do is walk right up to the front of the line, show this certificate, and you’ll go on the ride without waiting.” 

My son’s expression turned into a smile. He felt like a Disney VIP. The staffer seemed to be about twenty years old, which amazed me. With the service aptitude I had at twenty, I would most likely have said, “Dad, get your whiny kid out of my face. It isn’t my fault he isn’t tall enough. It isn’t my fault you somehow missed the five signs saying how tall he needs to be. This happens to me several times an hour, and I’m sick of it. Why do I need to fix this?” However, what Disney gets that most companies don’t is while it isn’t their fault, it is their problem. Instead of going home and remembering the long lines, how hot it was, how much money we spent, and how we couldn’t get on one of the rides, we had this certificate hanging on our refrigerator door for the next two years. Every day Johnni would say, “Can we go back to Disney today?” I would measure him and say, “Not yet.” 

“While they may complain about the service defect, 

they will rave at how well we handled it.”

*Related – When faced with an upset customer, your employees should do the LEAST

2) Must watch short video

This video is about the amazing act of kindness a high school football team, Grapevine Faith, did for an opponent, Gainesville State School, one Friday night in Grapevine, TX (thanks to Dr Paul Bizjak for sharing with me). Gainesville State School is a maximum-security correctional facility. Every game they play is on the road and the players are escorted to and from the field by 12 uniformed guards with handcuffs in their back pockets. 

3) Quote of The Week 

“Rules and policies strip employees of creativity and autonomy. 

Employees don’t want to work in a box they want to be able to make a difference.”

4) Join us for our webinar on How to Build Your own 6 figure CX Coaching Business

Are you waking up before your alarm goes off, throwing the covers off and jumping out of bed because you are so excited about your workday? Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who do feel like that. Maybe it is time you become one of them. Join us on March 10th, 3 pm EST, for our webinar on How to Build Your own 6 Figure CX Coaching Business.

In this webinar, find out how you can start a business around your passion and grow it to six figures, working just a few days a week.

You’ll hear: 

• what it takes to become a successful coach and business owner
• how to find your first clients
• the formula to follow to ensure your success
• the benefit a community plays when you’re a solopreneur
• how to earn six figures your first year
• Who should apply to become a CX Coach 

5. Get your Master’s in Customer Experience

We are now accepting applications for the 2021 Customer eXperience Executive Academy (CXEA), which starts April 2021. Having worked with the top Customer Service organizations in the world, The DiJulius Group’s Customer eXperience Executive Academy (CXEA) gives you both theoretical and practical experience on how to elevate the levels of service at your company. With the need for rapid growth of the Customer Experience Executive in businesses today, the Customer eXperience Executive Academy uses the X Commandment Methodology, which covers all facets and responsibilities that fall under Customer Experience. Unlike any other institution, the CXEA’s focus, strictly on the Customer Experience, prepares leaders to champion change at any company, regardless of industry. Register today!