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Mastering the Art of Service
Join Darren A. Smith and Andrew Stotts from the Weird Human podcast, as they explore customer service with the useful tools of coaching cards.
You Can Read the Full Customer Service Transcript Below:
Andrew Stotts:
So first of all, welcome back. This is a actually very special edition of the Weird Human podcast. Just to remind you about why we exist. We exist really to kind of shed light on the extraordinary. Once again I am joined by a truly extraordinary chap Mr. Darren Smith from Sticky Learning. Again when Darren reached out to me a few weeks ago and he asked me whether I would kind of partner with him in it on a small project. We kind of thought that we would just talk a little bit about that project today with you guys and get down, kind of ask me a few questions. Primarily it’s around exceptional customer service. So Darren tell us about the project.
Darren Smith:
Well, the project is mainly about four years ago we looked at coaching cards, little playing cards like, you know, with the ACEs spades and that on. We thought there’d be a great learning tool if we could turn into 80 questions per topic. This one’s about customer service that would help a manager with a report to coach that person to be fabulous at customer service. We also have coaching cards on negotiation skills and others, and each time we find an expert who rock and rolls on the topic like you do on customer service, we ask you to write the questions, and then we put it online as a cheap resource and tool to use.
>> Customer Service Coaching Cards <<
Andrew Stotts:
I have to say that the, well, first of all, the coaching cards I use them regularly in coaching. They are absolutely on the money, really fantastic. Slightly my kind of my kind of, I suppose my imposter syndrome kind of gets in the way around you explaining how amazing the customer service cards are. But I do believe that the collaboration between Darren and myself around customers are particularly is absolutely excellent. So I’m actually going to just sort of like switch the coin today. So Dan was going to ask me a few questions just around kind of customer service. I’ll let you into a little secret. I don’t really know the answers. I don’t know what he can ask me. So I’m slightly apprehensive, but hey I’ll do my best to, to answer his questions.
Darren Smith:
That’s fabulous. Well, we all know, and the people watching that you know your stuff. So I’m going to throw a few questions your way. Let’s talk about customer service. We’re going to do a shameless plug for one or 2% of the cards, but 80-90% of this is about helping people to be rock and roll at customer service. Alright.
Andrew Stotts:
It sounds like an absolute plan. I mean, it’s always been a deep kind of like, passion of mine. Where I like to start it, if you don’t mind, Darren, the reason it’s been such a strong passion of mine is it’s because I suppose I’m quite selfish, really. When I went to work as a very young man about 400 years ago, I suppose I kind of learned really quickly that if I gave people—I started my job as a waiter. Well, actually I started slightly more junior than the waiter. But as a waiter though the few moments at the beginning of my career as a waiter were absolutely critical.
Andrew Stotts:
I always say that because, you know, for me, I learned very quickly that if I gave people what they needed and I understood what they needed usually that translated into them giving me what I needed, which was a big tip. Yeah. Simple. So that’s kind of how I learned the art really, of customer service. The better I got at it and it wasn’t unusual for me. I mean, I think it’s quite funny these days, and people would laugh at this, but I think my weekly salary was about four pounds a week.
Andrew Stotts:
It kind of gives my age away a little bit. But it wasn’t unusual for me to be able to get a hundred pounds a day in tips. Back to my earlier point of it being quite selfish. So I kind of learnt about mastering the art of service and of course I kind of picked up on that a little bit from my father because he was a major influence in my sort of learnings there.
Darren Smith:
Okay. Okay. So in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you about customer service?
Andrew Stotts:
Well, because it gives you what you need. I mean, for me it’s like about loyal customers. I love the idea that caring is probably the greatest marketing tool you have. I’ve always kind of led with a strong kind of do I look like I care, I think in the relationship. But critically, just from a, a selfish point of view, if customers come back and they repeat business with you. I’m not going to bore you with the story today, but my father for example, had customers who were using him week in, week out for 60 years. You can kind of imagine the idea that a customer was that loyal. So that’s really the essence of it.
Andrew Stotts:
So from a business point of view, delivering masterful customer service, guest service actually drives loyalty, creates relationships. Of course that is obviously going to be a massive revenue generator without really any real outlay because you’re not having to market that customer. It’s about member, it’s about customer, it’s about guest retention you think is so important.
Darren Smith:
We’ve all experienced great customer service, and we’ve experienced bad customer service. It’s the latter one we go and tell 200 people about afterwards. Now, trying to get good customer service consistently in a business is damn hard. You did it, I believe, at etti Airways. What were some of
Andrew Stotts:
I am guilty. Has charged for that. I mean, and I think even with P and Os. I think one of the proudest moments for me was when I was working with P and O actually moving P and O a net promoter score. But moving it from about by about 20% or about 18% positive which was was spectacular. But it’s really down. There’s some really nice, simple tricks. That’s really what the cards kind of help you to understand. So there’s some really useful questions. I know Darren alluded to those questions earlier, but there’s some really helpful questions that can help service providers, leaders, managers in those types of roles actually start to trigger thoughts about how we give experiences to our guests, which of course, drive exceptional customer service.
Darren Smith:
If someone’s watching and they’re a sort of you before and they’re running a customer service team or frontline team, and they’re thinking, okay, we’ve got this survey, we get it. We need to improve the gap. We get that. What do they do? How do they improve it without taking forever to achieve it?
Andrew Stotts:
Okay. I remember pitching what I’m going to tell you, I’ve actually pitch this to a couple of boards around the world. Both times I have to definitely, the last time I had a sign amount of doubt. I remember sitting outside the boardroom and I’d been asked to kind of like, pitch something around NPS and how we would close the gap on NPS. Now we’d improve NPS. I remember thinking, well, this is a relatively simple solution for me. So I remember sitting outside kind of clutching my little bits of paper waiting to go and talk to the board of this organization and then having this massive kind of fit of doubt because I’m thinking, this is just Andrew, what you’re suggesting is just too simple, right?
Andrew Stotts:
But anyway, I was committed and then of course my name was called and I kind of stood up almost like going towards the executioners block. I went in and I kind of did my kind of little bit of my Andrew show. But what was interesting was that I sort of pitched the idea, and I’ll pitch it to you in a couple of seconds, but I pitched the idea and it took about six or seven minutes for me to pitch the idea. But immediately afterwards there was a kind of like spontaneous round of applause in this board meeting.
Andrew Stotts:
The CEO said to me, Stotts, you’ve absolutely got it, nailed it on the head. If we can kind of do that, then actually that would be a completely transformational. So, yeah. So happy to share that kind of story with you. Should I share, share it with you now, Dan?
Darren Smith:
I’m dribbling a little bit thinking what is this that turned this ball on? Okay. Yeah, please.
Andrew Stotts:
Gosh, some people they’ve said, well, it’s a bit simple starts, but I think it starts with a high level of being present. I think that’s really important. I think we sometimes live too much in the past or live too much in the future. We’re not really enjoying the moment. So for me, there’s always going to be kind of five things that I focus on when we’re talking about customer service. But before we kind of go there, what I would like to do is just try to help people understand what customer service is. Because I think one of the challenges that most I’ve worked in Fiji and I’ve worked in New Zealand, Australia, and Russia.
Andrew Stotts:
Lots of places around the world. It’s the same situation. I think often service providers don’t understand the basic dynamic of customer service. So for me, there’s always going to be three levels. There’s what I would call the expectation. The problem with expectation is that what Darren expects or what Andrew expects is probably going to be different to what Mohammed expects or what Feist was going to expect, or what Sally expects. So there’s immediately some challenges there. We probably have some similarities when we are dealing with a person, a product, or a service and it’s quite, quite broad. So it applies really to any sector, any industry. I suppose what people misunderstand is that if I meet Darren’s expectation, so I give Darren what he’s paying for, for whatever that is, whatever product it is, but I meet the expectation.
Andrew Stotts:
A lot of people then believe, of course, that Darren’s going to be happy. I would strongly disagree with that. I don’t believe Darren will be happy if I give Darren what he needs. I believe that most of our customers are guests. They kind of live in a, how I would describe it is a, like a trance-like state. So when the expectations are being met, when they buy whatever it is, or the customer service, what they expect, they’re not kind of like knocked out of their trance. They are, of course knocked out of their trance if they don’t get what they expect. So that becomes what we call a negative interaction with the product, the service or the person. If they are basically getting what they expect, it’s almost like a zero.
Andrew Stotts:
So there’s no kind of difference there. Where the real kind of magic happens for me is actually going beyond the expectation and kind of knocking people out of the trance. Because when I knock people out of the trance, that’s when I get that kind of, like that haha kind of moment from a customer service point of view. So that’s what we’re trying to do with the cards. So if you can understand from a guesser a customer service, but yes, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Perfect. So most people, they’re not particularly present. They have like sets of expectations which are very, very spurious and not really very clear. So we need to help them with that. We need to help them with that. But most importantly, it’s doing beyond expectation.
Andrew Stotts:
I would say anticipating need is going to be really useful. When we’re talking about anticipating need of our guests, that’s a really interesting conversation because most people go, well, I haven’t got a ton of crystal ball stuff. I can’t see the future. I can’t really predict what the customer’s going to ask me. But I would disagree, because the service provider is often in a setting. It doesn’t matter if it’s an airport or a restaurant or a cafe or whatever it might be, or a coffee shop or whatever you are in a retail, established, whatever it is. That customer service expert actually spends a significant amount of their life in that situation. So they get asked a lot of questions can repeatedly by team, by guest customers kind of coming into their store, restaurant, airport, whatever it might be.
Andrew Stotts:
So therefore,we know the types of questions we’re likely to get asked. Therefore, by kind of predicting that the question’s going to be asked to us and providing those answers before the question is asked, I would call that anticipation of need. So of course, when you do that and people go, wow, how did you know I was going to ask you that? Oh, I just had a kind of like an inkling. They don’t really know because of course, you are the master of your location. You know where the ATMs are where the bags get wrapped, you know where the bathrooms are, you know where departures is. Right? So actually just by furnishing that information before you’re asked for it.
Andrew Stotts:
I always think when I go into a restaurant, if I’m carrying a baby it always kind of frustrates me if I have to ask for a high chair. I mean, that’s long gone for me. But as an example, if I’m carrying a baby, you know, for me, a door host should say, can I get you a high chair? Would you like me to heat the baby’s bottle? That to me is anticipation of need. It’s obviously a question I’m going to ask. Would you need to know the nappy chain or the toilet’s, bathrooms, the changing rooms are over here, right? So that’s anticipation of need. It’s not really genius. And again, it’s simple. So that’s the kind of the first part of it.
Darren Smith:
I love that because I saw a program some years ago, it’s Michelle Ru Silver Service, sort of, I think it was a BBC or ITV docentary. They brought some people off the street type thing. A 16 year old.16 years old that didn’t have a clue. They taught them Silver Service as a trade. Wonderful program. What the Matradee said was, we’re looking for special moments in the restaurant, things that you didn’t expect to happen that we’ve made happen. Hold on. They brought out a birthday cake. How’d you know it’s my birthday? Well, when you booked, we asked you to sign up to the newsletter, put your date on it, da dah, here’s your birthday cake.
Andrew Stotts:
It’s anticipating need. Then really, it comes down to, I would say these, those kind of five things. Then these cards then sort like build out of those five kind of areas. The idea is that effectively you would have like 80 days where you could ask a question or 80 weeks or maybe over you over maybe a year or whatever. So you would, you effectively have a topic and you start a conversation that slowly builds on. That’s the third step in the process, really. So the first step is actually understanding about the expectation of service and actually those magical moments that I would call anticipation of need.Then of course, it’s around these kind of five things that I’m a huge believer in.
Andrew Stotts:
We’ll do those in a couple of seconds. Then of course, the next natural part of that is really then questions that can prompt a conversation. These are the cards that we’ve kind of developed with you down which I’m very, very excited about. I have the cards and I’m just as I said, I think my wife was somewhat I opened this big box and I was like, oh my gosh, how amazing is this? I was running around my kind of living room you know, very excited about these cards, taking photographs and thinking about the million and one uses of cards. But they’re really great.
Andrew Stotts:
So I’d really encourage anyone kind of watching this, if you need a copy set of the cards, reach out and ask us. We’ll share the details and stuff in this kind of post as well which will be really useful. But I know you’re saying Stotts get on with it. What are the five things?
Darren Smith:
What are the five things and everyone else is going? Would he just tell me, I’m going to fast forward this. Would you just tell me the five things?
Andrew Stotts:
Just gimme the five things.
Darren Smith:
Give it to me.
Andrew Stotts:
So first of all you’ve got to remember that mostly we listen with our eyes, right? So most of our listening, you get, people get confused. They, they think they’re listening with their ears. In fact, we are listening with our eyes predominantly. So we are kind of watching people. So I think the first thing for me is what I would call really strong eye contact and a fantastic smile. But what you got to be very careful about is that if you are permanently smiling, it makes you look like a bit of a may noon. A may noon is avid idiot or crazy person.
Andrew Stotts:
So people who are permanently smiling, if it’s a fixed kind of full smile, it’s not going to really work. So I would strongly say to you, number one is think about ten five. So 10 feet and five feet. Generally we should be making strong eye contact with people who are about 10 feet away from us. If you imagine two circles, you’ve got like a 10 foot circle around the outside your perimeter, you should be making strong eye contact with anyone who comes within kind of 10 feet of you.
Andrew Stotts:
You should definitely be smiling when they kind of come within five feet of you to 10, five as simple as that. So that’s nber one. So really fantastic eye contact and then followed up by this fantastic, genuine, sincere smile as they come towards you. I practice it all the time. I always say smile at strangers. I found right the way through my life that when I smile at strangers in elevators and in corridors and down the road, down the street, it’s amazing where those conversations lead me. So get into the habit of smiling and strange.
Andrew Stotts:
Also I was I think it’s a really great tip. You probably see me doing quite a lot of this, but I think showing the palms of my hands and smiling, hi, how you doing? Yeah. It’s a subtle clue that I’m in any way going to cause them any harm. Yeah. So I’m always kind of really, hi, welcome. It’s a big, big smile is important. That’s number one. The second thing is…
Darren Smith:
There’s a great Ted talk on palms, wonderful Ted talk on palms. Really good. Yeah.
Andrew Stotts:
I always pick people up. I’ve kind of got my arms behind me, and you see a lot of waiters doing that, right? You see a lot of door hosts doing that. It actually doesn’t really send off a very good vibe. It’s much better off if you’ve kind of got your hands in front of you and you’re kind of like using your hands. They were great. They were a fantastic tool. So yeah, number one is eye contact and a great smile, a sincere, genuine smile. Number two is just a really warm greeting. So just how are you today? Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. How’s your day? So a a very, very warm, genuine greeting is number two. Number three is an offer of assistance.
Andrew Stotts:
So how can I help you? What do you need from me today? I get some a little bit. I’ll be honest with you. I get a little bit criticized. I use the word I’m your servant. I think that’s really important. So I genuinely see myself as that. I know there’s probably people who disagree a little bit, but I kind of feel that I want to be that servant leader. I see my role as there to serve people, not really for them to serve me. I think that’s a really important part about who I genuinely am. So it’s always going to be an offer of assistance with an individual. Then of course, there’s going to be this moment where you are giving the individual what they need.
Andrew Stotts:
Of course, that really helps by asking questions. So often I do an activity with a maybe a pen, and people will say to me, oh, can you explain that to me with a pen? And I sort of, we’ll talk about a pen. Maybe I grab a biro and it’s amazing how many people try to sell me the biro without really understanding what my need is. So my kind of strong advice to anyone who really wants to master customer service, that’s the asking questions. Why is the pen important to you, Andrew? What are you going to use the pen for? Where do you use the pen? Then listening, actually, I will say actively listening, but I would almost go aggressively listening to the answer. Because if you are leaning in, you’re nodding, you’re taking notes, and you are then sort of like sumarizing.
Andrew Stotts:
So let me hear what you’re saying, Darren. I think you need. So you’re looking for a pen, Darren, it needs to come in lots of colors. It needs to make you look fantastic, whatever it might be. So I’m actually selling the need back to them. When I sell the need back to them in that kind of moment, what I’m actually doing is I’m looking for that kind of magical word. Yes. So, Darren, you are asking it has to come in multiple colors. This pen comes in 18 different colors. Does that meet your need? Yes, Andrew. Okay. This is going to make you look really, really, really expensive, Darren. Yeah.
Andrew Stotts:
So is that going to meet your need? Yes. Yes, it is. So the more I get yeses from my customer the harder it is actually for them to say no, particularly when I’m selling it to them. When I’m saying, so how many pens do you want? You’re not going to say, I don’t want a pen anymore. The human mind says, well, you’ve just said yes to Andrew seven times, and now you’re suddenly saying no.
Darren Smith:
It’s like Jordan Belfort on wall for Wall Street, isn’t it? Don’t sell me the pen. Ask me a question. Do you want a pen? What do you want? I love it. Love it. Yeah. Brilliant.
Andrew Stotts:
I always say to people, the mother of your question really is the person speaking. We often talk about matching and mirroring, but I think people don’t often understand the concept of matching and mirroring specific words. I’m really excited today, Darren. Why are you excited, Darren? Yeah. So actually just because that immediately builds kind of rapport. So a quick recap the first three. Number one is, eye contact and fantastic smile. Think about 10 foot for your eye contact. That’s why I love you. This is why we love you, Darren. So 10 foot for eye contact, five foot for a fantastic warm smile. Number three definitely it’s that obviously a warm greeting, number two.
Andrew Stotts:
Then on number three is really understanding what the customer needs from you so you can deliver it. Assuming you’ve done a great job, I think number four for me is really just is my magic question. What else? So what else do you need? Because I think there’s an opportunity there. I would say it’s, what else? It’s an introduction. People say often Stotts, why don’t you introduce yourself at the beginning. I think it’s overkill. So what I would strongly encourage you to do is the what else point. So that’s a point nber four, at the what else point I would say so for example, Darren what else do you need? Darren said, I don’t need anything else. That’s fine. So I would say then my name is Andrew.
Andrew Stotts:
If you do need anything else while we are here, just come back and ask me. I’m here to help you. I’m your servant. Yeah. So I’m giving them permission. I worked for Moss Bross a long time ago. I’ve probably never even admitted that. I was only there for a very, very short period of my life. So I never really worked at that time. I never really worked in retail, but I was the, the top sales person week in, week out. Again, I’ll tell you why I was their top salesperson. I couldn’t afford not to be, because I was getting commission for working for Moss Boss, right? But I just applied the same principle. So when anyone walked into my Moss Boss store I was just a sales assistant, sales associate.
Andrew Stotts:
But I would eye contact and smile when they walked in. I would always give them a warm greeting. My name’s Andrew, if you need anything in the store, you need help with any of the merchandise, just come and ask me. Right? They would say, no, no, I’m good. Thank you. I’m just going to browse. Fantastic. Off they’d go. But the thing that really kind of like won it, they’d get to the till. When we were on the till, we’d say, did anyone help you today, Mr. Darren? Darren would go, oh, yeah, Andrew, he helped me. It was like, fantastic. Chaching, chaching, chaching, chaching. People say, how’d you do this, Stotts? I say, gosh, guys, you see me do it every day.
Andrew Stotts:
It’s not like I’m not trying to keep it to myself. It’s not like some secret tine secret. Just do what I do. But it takes practice and it’s about being present and it is consistent, right? So number one, eye contact and smile. Number two, warm greeting. Number three offer assistance. Number four, the what else with an introduction. Darren, my name’s Andrew. If you need anything else, just come and ask me. Then number five I call it a fun farewell. So just offering them a fantastic afternoon, evening, good evening. Hey, it’s been great talking to you, Darren. I look forward to speaking to you soon. Just a fun farewell at the end makes a difference. So those kind of five points. Yes, absolutely beautiful Darren.
Andrew Stotts:
So what Darren and I have done is, which I think is really clever saying it myself. So please, forgive me for that. But we’ve then sort of like broken those five kind of key points into 80 questions. So those 80 questions effectively, then you can use those questions to then generate a conversation. So when we’re having a conversation about the experience that we’re sharing with each other. So yeah, as I say, we’ll share the link. We’ll share the cards with you. If you’d like us to look at the cards, we’d love to kind of, if you want some examples of the cards, please let me know. We’ll share the link. Definitely we’ll show you some imagery around the cards. If you want to ask us questions around the cards as reach out and ask us.
Darren Smith:
Could you just give us an idea of couple of questions that are on the cards that are helping people with customer service? So each card has one question on it. What’s the typical question we’re asking people
Andrew Stotts:
When was the last time you gave great customer service? When was the last time that you created a fantastic experience? When was the last time that someone said thank you to you? When was the last time that you did something for another person? Let’s practice asking questions. So tell me what’s important to you. Explain to me what’s important to you. I’m not a big fan of role play, but I would say the real kind of real play. Yeah. I’m a great believer if you give people questions particularly if the question is well crafted. I see in a lot of meetings, and often what I’m seeing is I see managers kind of leading conversations. When I mean leaving a conversation, they’re perhaps giving a, sharing a piece of information, and then they kind of follow it up by, is that correct, Darren? Then Darren goes, yes.
Andrew Stotts:
The problem is that there’s no way that you can prove Darren. Darren’s an amazing, great. But there’s no way you can really prove that Darren has got it. But if you ask a question, at least you can understand whether Darren is getting it. Or then of course, if you don’t think Darren is getting it, then he does kind of give you more permission to be perhaps a little bit more direct and perhaps more instructional. Because we all need to have, there’s all kind of those four tools. I need to tell Darren, and Darren’s going to really appreciate that. If Darren doesn’t know. Darren’s new to a task where he’s learning about customer service, and he’s perhaps never had exposure to it.
Andrew Stotts:
I mean, one of the challenges that I have where I kind of work in different parts of the world is sometimes, I’ve worked in Bhutan, right? I’ve worked in the Philippines and I’ve worked in India. Sometimes when you’re working with human beings, sometimes they haven’t been exposed as a customer to nice hotels. They haven’t been exposed as a customer to a coffee shop. They haven’t been exposed to kind of retail. So therefore it’s not really their fault. So they perhaps can’t answer the questions, but actually by establishing they don’t know something, at least it gives you then permission to actually, you know, to be a bit more, you know, perhaps prescriptive and actually ask them some questions, not, and just to re you know, direct them on perhaps how they might deal with it.
Andrew Stotts:
Ten as the conversation evolves, you might move into other questions just to test their understanding, they’re kind of getting it. What have we spoken about Dar and explain to me what you’re going to do next time. Let’s talk about that. See that situation. So just again, creating that conversation between your managers and your frontline sort of sales teams or your baristas or your kind of receptionist, or your sales assistants, or your cabin crew, whatever the, whoever they might be that’s just really, really important.
Darren Smith:
I’d like to get your take on two other things to do with customer service. One, I read a book some years ago by Alf Dunbar called, just Looking. Thanks. I don’t know if you’ve heard a book or Alf Dunbar.
Andrew Stotts:
Yeah, I have. Yes. It’s a good, very good book.
Darren Smith:
What he says was that he found that everyone who went into a clothing store was approached by an assistant who said, can I help you? They said, just looking thanks. What his program does, wonderful program, I haven’t been on it, but I’ve heard many good things about it, is that it gets those people to come up to the customer and say, hi, I’m Andrew, if you need me, I’m here. Type thing. Rather than ask a question and the sales improve because of it. Have you come across, what do you think
Andrew Stotts:
This is a very, very, very, very interesting conversation. My top tip is honestly, genuinely sincere compliments. Okay? I would, generally, what I tend to do is I would. It goes back to an earlier point. You have to be present. You have to be kind of in the moment. Darren, where you can see, I spent a lot of time, obviously getting myself dressed today. I rarely get dressed in the dark. My daughter might have a slightly different opinion on that, but I rarely get dressed in the dark. So I’m probably given quite a lot of thought into how I’m looking. I think that’s really important. So therefore, one of the reasons I wear my pocket handkerchief, or I wear my little pin here I often wear sort of knitted ties.
Andrew Stotts:
I have my kind of John Lennon you know glasses on. I have my kind of like bracelets my watch and that kind of stuff. But there’s more of a reason for me doing that. I’ve learned that actually it gets me into conversation. because often people say, well, I love your pin, or I love your glass, or I love your watch. Or wow, I love your socks. We always wear niche ties. For me it’s them paying me a compliment kind of opens conversations. That doesn’t matter if I’m in a supermarket I’m on an airplane and I’m in an airport. I’m basically in a coffee shop. Often strange will come and comment on me.
Andrew Stotts:
Sometimes this maybe not very nice comment, but the vast majority, it’s compliments. So I think getting into the habit of sincere compliments, most people spend a lot of time getting dressed in the morning. They plan what they’re going to wear. They’re going out and they’re having a retail experience. They’re buying they handkerchief, they’re buying the knotted tie. They’re buying the suit, they’re buying the pin. There’s probably a story behind the outfit, right? So getting into that, getting into the habit of saying, oh, I hope you don’t mind. I love your handbag, or I loved your shoes, or I love your socks, or I love your glasses. Those are great questions. Compliments are really useful. I think if you are asking a great compliment when someone’s coming in, and then you’re immediately as they’re kind of like going, wow, that’s so lovely.
Andrew Stotts:
Thank you so much. No one’s ever said that, you’re making their day. Where did you get the pins from? I love that, that kind of combination. I love your, whatever it might be. Just following it with a great question, love just starts to have, that starts to build a relationship really quickly. So just generally, rather than just saying, can I help you? First of it’s a closed question, right? Because if I ask, can I help you, Darren, can I help you? Is of course going to be led by no. What do you need from me today? You know, at least you’re, you’re asking the question. I’m here. What do you need from me? I’m here for you. Let me support you. Need and think. Don’t hesitate to come over and talk to me. We’ll help you.
Darren Smith:
So just think about the way you are asking your questions. It’s going to make a big difference. Again, back to our cards and the reason we’ve created the cards. Lovely, lovely. We’ll do a shout out to Alf Dunbar. We’ll try and link him in, see if he’s got some thoughts on this. lf you would. The second thing, Andrew, I’d like to get your take on is many years ago I was witnessing a food counter. A deli counter by you cheese your ham off your counter in a supermarket. This guy was doing some training and he asked one of the learners to go up and do some pretend selling behind the counter to a customer. She was awful. By her own admission, she was horrible. It was awkward. It was. And then he said to us, something amazing.
Darren Smith:
He just whispered in her ear, next time you go up, I’d like you to pretend the person who’s coming up is your mom. She said, what do you mean? Well, your mom. What happened was this woman came up, obviously wasn’t her mom. She said, how I, she said, I’m good. You’ve got to try this cheese. It’s brilliant. She just went off in this patter that no one had ever seen before. It was an amazing experience. She loved it. The customer loved it. This guy, the trainer, was a genius.
Andrew Stotts:
That’s an absolutely brilliant example. So I just, I just feel that if you just imagine your best friend in front of you, how would you greet them? I’m not saying necessarily go around. Dn’t do that. Don’t do the hugging thing. But, but by all means, just, just imagining. I mean, Darren is a very good friend of mine, but if you imagine that the person in front of you is a great friend it’s amazing. I think that the challenge is that you’re going to meet, you know, one in three, one in four people who you interact with just are going to be, they’re not going to be very nice. You know? I think that’s the problem. So we’ve got to be very careful.
Andrew Stotts:
I think sometimes when we’re dealing with individual, we’re dealing with han beings. Most people you well have bad experiences with, with customers. There’s no doubt in my mind. I mean, I’ve had bad experiences as well. Suddenly people kind of jp out of wardrobes and they start shouting at you. But that’s the absolute minority. We’ve got to be careful as service providers not treating everyone like the minority because most people have good intentions. They want to come in, they want to use your product, they want to use your service. They would like to have some type of a, a customer loyal kind of relationship with you. Actually just being, you know, not treating people as if they’re trying to rob you or trying to in some way be nasty to you.
Andrew Stotts:
I think unfortunately, we do have this kind of habit where we a lot, what, what I see is a lot of people treat people at the lowest possible denominator, which is, this person’s trying to rob me. They’re trying to scam me, trying to cheat me in some way. I think that’s a really bad way to go. Hey, there are people out there who are trying to, you know, 0.1%, they are trying to rob you and trying to scam you, but don’t treat the world like they’re trying to rob you and scam you because they’re genuinely not. They’re try and keep it han to han trying to build that rapport. Also the other benefit for me is it makes it really fun.
Andrew Stotts:
Yeah. If you’re actually talking and sort of paying compliments and you’re engaging with your customers a your sales go through the roof, you just get better at your job. Your day goes much faster. At the end of the day, terrible, as this might sound though, and I have to live with myself 24 hours a day. I mean, it’s a nightmare. I mean, I go to bed with myself, I sleep with myself. I wake up with myself. I go to work with myself. I go to the bathroom myself. It’s a nightmare. I’m there every minute of every day. For me, it’s so, what a nightmare. Can you imagine? What a nightmare that is? So I kind of have a personal choice.
Andrew Stotts:
I can have choose to be a miserable person and depressed, or I can choose to be super happy and fun, right? It’s much more fun for me being happy and fun than I can be depressed. I do depress really well, but I enjoy myself. I enjoy living with me when I’m kind of more interactive and more fun and paying compliments and smiling and saying hi. Because actually, just even if I’m actually feeling a bit sad, because I think sometimes we do feel sad, but even when I’m feeling sad, just the act of smiling and saying hello to people, it’s amazing how that kind of lifts, right? There’s some good, there’s some good stuff there.
Andrew Stotts:
But the bottom line here is that if you do some of the stuff we’re suggesting, you are definitely, you’ll drive your NPS, your net promoter score will definitely go up. But critically you’re going to drive revenue and you’re going to get that loyalty, that kind of customer coming back to you, which I think is is really, really important.
Darren Smith:
I think it’s the royal male who published a stat with, but went something like, it costs a hundred pounds to win a customer, but only 10 pounds to retain one, some stat like that. I think that’s the same for every company in the world. It’s much harder grabbing new customers than just keeping the ones you’ve got.
Andrew Stotts:
Yeah, a hundred percent, mate. I mean, as I said, it’s just, I said back to my story with my dad. He had customers who he’d been, who had been using him every week for 60 years. I mean, that’s staggering. Any business would snap his hand off so he doesn’t have to have the most flashy premises, he doesn’t have to have the most flashy, modern equipment, but just the, the loyalty. So you’re saving a fortune in stock and you’re saving a fortune in rent and that kind of stuff. But he’s focusing on loyalty and actually getting customers to come back. And it’s that repeat business that you’re looking for.
Darren Smith:
So everyone watching, Andrew has kindly created some wonderful customer service cards. 80 of them, 80 questions that will blow your mind. If you want to be the very best version of yourself, customer service wise, please use his cards. They’re a great collaboration, they’re not that expensive, they’re about 20 quid. And we’ll put a link on here, Andrew. Yeah.
Andrew Stotts:
Thank you. Amazing. Dan, it’s nice to spend time with you. Guys, genuinely, any questions for myself or for Darren, anything we’re doing here, please just reach out and ask us. I’m absolutely your servant. Superb. Speak soon, guys. Take care. Bye. Take
Darren Smith:
Care. Bye bye.
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