Is Zappos that good at Customer Service?
Manager fired for poor responses to negative reviews – A manager at the budget Georgian House Hotel, reacted unprofessionally to Customers who complained about his hotel on TripAdvisor. Instead of reaching out to see how he could make it right, he took the total opposite approach! The goal should be to have Zero Risk to deal with as a company. Here are a few of the responses he posted on TripAdvisor:
“What do you expect for so little cash?”
“If you want a good breakfast go to the Hilton and pay £100.00 a night. You pay little you get little.”
“Thanks for your money, sucker. Long may the idiot line continue.”
“With only one person to look after the place what do you expect. Think about what you paid.”
Low Service Aptitude – Not surprisingly, this manager was fired. I cannot stress enough how important Service Aptitude is to how consistent your company delivers outstanding Customer service. It is not your employees’ job to have high Service Aptitude, it is the organization’s responsibility to train them.
Related: How Cleveland has become the Customer service capital of the world
Zappos caught on recording & undercover – In a past eService titled The Weather Challenge , I shared how I called Zappos.com and asked the person who answered what the weather was in San Francisco, and he told me. I decided to do this again and record it. Listen to what happened:
Two can play that game – Since I use the Zappos’ call in many of my presentations, one of my own clients, Jessica Schnieder, Customer Xperience Director for Anytime Fitness, decided to test out John Robert’s Spa by recording a call with our contact center, and she threw them a curveball. When she was trying to book a haircut for a certain night, she asked the JR rep if she knew if the Cleveland Indians were playing that night because she has season tickets. Listen to what happened;
How would your staff handle the weather challenge? Have someone call your business and ask something simple, like “what is the weather” or anything that they could pull up within seconds online. See how accommodating your staff is. Record it and share it with them. It is a great test to check the Service Aptitude of your team.
Related: Don’t miss this October’s CX Talk Customer Xperience Talk Show
Secret Service on conference calls – The challenge with conference calls is that if it involves more than two or three people, it’s easy to get confused about who’s speaking at any one point. Geoffrey James,in his blog, Everyone Should Know This Simple LinkedIn Trick, shares a great Secret Service technique: Before attending a conference call, bring up the LinkedIn profile of each attendee in a separate window and arrange the windows on your screen so that all of them are visible and review each attendee’s profile. When the meeting starts, as each person introduces himself or herself, look at the photo and “anchor” that voice to that face. This is easy because your brain does this automatically anyway. At the end of the meeting, you’ll find that your notes make more sense, and you have a much better idea of who made specific commitments and where you need to follow up to move your agenda forward.
Join the revolution – The DiJulius Group has created the #1 Customer Service Conference ever produced. The 2014 Secret Service Summit will be held this November 5th & 6th in Cleveland, Ohio. This is a two-day, international seminar dedicated exclusively to world-class Customer service. The lineup includes respected authorities, authors, consultants, and top-brand executives who run world-class Customer service organizations. The 2014 Secret Service Summit is guaranteed to be the best ROI of any professional development training/seminar you have experienced. The Secret Service Summit will enable your management team to return with a solid plan to take your company’s Customer experience to the next level and make price irrelevant.
Meet this year’s speakers-
