Question of the Month (as featured in January’s Ambassador UPDATE)
Save 50% of what you earn and try living off the other 50%.
Don't buy on impulse, wait a year before you buy a new hot item, prices will be a lot lower.
Celebrate Christ
What’s the best piece of advice you ever got?
Don’t Put Me on Hold!!
It’s no shock to hear that some company falls short on treating a client properly. It comes with the holidays! But when a Lexus dealer in Newport Beach, falls on its customer service face, that is a surprise.
My car has been in the dealer for a full week. Today I phoned to find out if the car was ready—I just wanted a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
A message to my service rep went unresponded (I later found out he was out of the office). So, at day's end, I called . . . time and time again. And, in each instance, I was put on hold: the first time 10 minutes. The second time five; the third two. The fourth time, I wanted to see how long an extension could ring without being responded to: 12 minutes before I gave up. The fifth time I called back, I said “I simply need a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to whether my car is ready. That’s all.”
The receptionist went to put me on hold, I said, “Please don’t. I’d like to speak with a person. No one answers the phone…it just rings and rings and rings.”
To which she responded rather curtly, “That’s not our fault.”
I was so startled, I simply responded with a chuckle, “Excuse me?!?!”
You know when you hear “That’s not our fault,” you can surmise only one of two things the person on the other end of the line is saying: “It’s YOU, the customer who’s at fault” (we certainly don’t want to take responsibility for your discomfort) or, “We’re simply so unprepared to take care of customers, we can’t handle another call.”
Either way, that’s a disturbing response. Not just for what it says explicitly, but for what must being going on at that store to trigger such a response.
In great contrast, earlier today I had lunch with a group from work at Lucille’s in Tustin. It’s targeted to a lunch crowd and does a good job of delivering quality food in fairly short order. That’s not easy when you’re serving 150 meals in a short window of time.
I’ve eaten there several times before and usually you can get in and out in 45 minutes. But today, our food arrived an hour after we were seated.
The manager came by to apologize and said he’d comp our $7 appetizer which seemed a bit meager given the circumstances, but I figured something is better than nothing, and it's Christmas...let is pass. When the bill came, he actually took $45 off the bill…about a third of the total. It was far more than I would have even asked for.
Tha manager understood that he needed to something sizeable enough to get my attention. And he did!
The explicit message was “I want you to be happy.” The implicit message was, “I want you to be a customer for life.” I now know, anytime I go into Lucille’s, he will guarantee my pleasurable dining experience.
Big difference between two customer service attitudes.
Now here’s what I want to say: We’re all in the customer service business. Every time you touch someone, you send more than one message. The explicit one: “We need your financial help.” And the implicit one: “We’re doing the financially responsible thing by cutting our overhead everywhere. You can trust our financial management.”
You may think about what you say, but do you think about how it’ll be received? Usually, the later is a far more power message. It was for me today!
One Language is Not Enough!
If you’ve traveled to Europe, you’ve experienced the same thing: everyone speaks at least two (and many times three or four) languages. I’m grateful when I can ask and receive an answer to a tourist question in English. (Any inquiry requiring more than using the word "fromage" is beyond my ability to speak French.)So there’s a lesson here for those of us in marketing. Put your message in words that I understand and are important to me.
How about the organization which is “playing a role in diminishing the pandemic of worldwide hunger and disease.” Why didn’t they just say, “We’re saving lives”?
And if I sponsor a child in Sierra Leone, tell me about work going on in Western Africa, not services provided in Latin America.
Speak to me in my language, and in words that a important to me. The most powerful messages are those in your own language.
SHHH...no one knows, but what I really hope to find under the tree on Christmas Day is...
Question of the Month (as featured in December's Ambassador UPDATE)
Chad Bishop: An Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!
Evelyn Gibson: Airline tickets for Ethiopia, Tanzania, India, South America and Central America!
Jennifer Perez: A box full of Jani's favorite all-time recipes -- a treasure-trove of good eats!
Katie Burke: an iPhone (but I think everyone knows by now!)
Lee Ann Jackson:
A few more years to enjoy my children at home—time is passing too quickly (my oldest, 15, will be off to college sooner than I’d like!).
Or
An iPhone!
Mark Conner: The biggest smiles and excited reactions from my two girls as they open their presents!
Peggy Campbell: Jon
Robert Jacobsen: A certificate for free Baby sitting!
Sheri Cooper: All my grandkids! (And their parents too!) And, it would be an extra surprise to find fabric to make a new quilt under my tree!
So . . . what about you??
Noel. . .the first day of Christmas!
Posts
