WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER?

Summary

The speaker discusses the importance of customer service, emphasizing that serving customers is a calling, not just a job. They highlight that everyone, regardless of their role, deals with customers daily and often forgets they are customers themselves. The talk explores how businesses sometimes prioritize processes over customer experience, which can lead to a disconnect between service and the customer. The speaker encourages a mindset shift towards viewing customers as people and stresses the replaceability of individuals and organizations if they fail to prioritize customer experience over rigid processes.

Takeaways

• 📈 All of us deal with customers every day, regardless of our role or job title.
• 🤝 Customer service is not just a job but a calling to serve others.
• 💡 Many technical professionals often forget that they have internal customers within the organization.
• 👥 All customers are people, not just numbers or figures on a PowerPoint slide.
• 🌍 No matter where you go in the world, people have common desires like hope, laughter, and improving life for their children.
• 🔄 Everyone is replaceable, and no organization or role is indispensable.
• 🔧 The role of processes is to standardize and make customer service more efficient, not to replace the experience.
• ❓ A key question businesses should ask: What is more important – process or customer experience?
• 📊 Rules and processes in industries like banking, insurance, and retail are necessary but often focus more on preventing downside risks rather than optimizing opportunities.
• 🚪 Optimizing opportunities requires a different mindset and set of rules beyond just following process safeguards.

Q & A

What is the main entity the speaker refers to in the beginning of the transcript?

The main entity the speaker refers to is the 'customer,' which is something everyone deals with in their professional lives.

Why does the speaker emphasize that all of us are also customers?

The speaker emphasizes this to remind the audience that although we serve customers in our jobs, we often forget that we ourselves are customers too, and that understanding this helps improve customer service.

What does the speaker mean by saying 'service is a calling, not a job'?

The speaker means that providing customer service should come from a deeper commitment to serving others, rather than just fulfilling job duties. It's a higher purpose that goes beyond technical aspects of a role.

Why does the speaker differentiate between 'lag indicators' and 'lead indicators' in customer service?

The speaker differentiates between them to explain that 'lag indicators,' such as surveys or reviews, reflect past performance, while 'lead indicators' focus on proactive elements that build a customer-centric culture.

What is the significance of the point 'all customers are people' in the transcript?

The speaker stresses that customers are not just numbers in a database but real people with emotions, hopes, and expectations. This is important because businesses often depersonalize customers and forget their human nature.

What is the speaker's view on the replaceability of employees?

The speaker asserts that everyone is replaceable, regardless of their position or the size of the company they work for. No organization has a 'divine right' to exist, and individuals need to stay humble and adaptable.

How does the speaker describe the role of 'managers' in scaling businesses?

The speaker explains that managers are typically brought in to manage processes efficiently, but they often focus more on the processes than on customer service, which can be detrimental to customer experience.

What is the speaker's perspective on the relationship between processes and customer service?

The speaker believes that while processes are important for standardizing customer service, they should not replace the focus on the customer experience. Processes should serve customers, not hinder them.

Why does the speaker mention industries like banking, insurance, and retail?

The speaker uses these industries to illustrate how each has specific rules and processes, often designed to mitigate risks, but emphasizes that these rules are not optimized for enhancing customer service or seizing opportunities.

What does the speaker suggest is needed to 'optimize upside opportunity'?

The speaker suggests that optimizing upside opportunity requires a different set of rules and thinking, implying that a focus on customer experience and flexibility is essential, rather than relying solely on rigid processes.

Outlines

00:00

💼 The Universal Truth: Dealing with Customers

In this opening section, the speaker introduces the concept that all of us, regardless of profession, deal with customers daily. This 'entity' is essential to personal and business success. The speaker humorously reflects on their global speaking engagements, except in Antarctica. The core message is that many professionals forget they are also customers, despite interacting with them every day.

05:01

🌍 A Commonality Among All People

The speaker emphasizes the universal traits of people worldwide, from China to the United States. They point out that all customers, regardless of their location, are people who share common hopes, dreams, and emotions. This reminder is vital because businesses often reduce customers to numbers or roles, neglecting the human aspect of customer service.

Keywords

💡Customer

A customer is described as the ultimate entity everyone deals with in both business and personal contexts. The speaker emphasizes that a customer is not merely a number or figure in a database but a real person with emotions, needs, and experiences. The speaker stresses that how a business interacts with its customers directly influences its success.

💡Service

Service is portrayed as more than just a job; it is a calling. The speaker discusses how delivering customer service should be rooted in the desire to serve others, not merely in performing tasks or following processes. This approach is essential to creating meaningful customer experiences.

💡Process

The speaker critiques the over-reliance on processes in business, noting that focusing solely on processes can detract from the actual goal of serving customers. Processes should standardize and improve customer service but not replace personal interaction or understanding of customer needs.

💡Lead Indicators

Lead indicators refer to the proactive measures taken to enhance customer service. The speaker contrasts these with 'lag indicators,' such as surveys or feedback, which show what has already occurred. Lead indicators focus on improving the customer experience in real-time, driving future success.

💡Calling

Calling is used to emphasize that providing customer service is not just a task but a higher purpose or vocation. The speaker frames service as something that requires passion, dedication, and personal investment, not merely fulfilling duties or adhering to processes.

💡People

The speaker stresses that all customers are people, meaning they have common human traits such as emotions, desires, and personal lives. This insight challenges the tendency to dehumanize customers by treating them as abstract numbers or data points. Recognizing customers as people fosters empathy and better service.

💡Replaceable

The idea of being replaceable addresses the speaker's point that no one in an organization is irreplaceable, regardless of the size or success of the company. The speaker argues that businesses must stay grounded in the fact that they exist to serve customers, and no single individual or process is indispensable.

💡Rules

Rules are described as necessary for managing the downside risks in businesses, especially in industries like banking, insurance, and retail. However, the speaker criticizes the idea that rules should control customer service, arguing that while rules ensure safety and consistency, they do not optimize opportunities for enhancing the customer experience.

💡Customer Experience

Customer experience is presented as the key priority for businesses, surpassing the importance of processes. The speaker emphasizes that businesses should focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences, as it is the ultimate determinant of success. The failure to prioritize experience over process can lead to customer dissatisfaction.

💡Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is mentioned as a 'lag indicator,' a metric used to measure customer satisfaction after interactions. The speaker uses NPS as an example of how companies often rely on past data to assess service quality but stresses that focusing on improving real-time interactions is more critical.

Highlights

The speaker emphasizes the universal truth that everyone deals with customers, no matter their profession or role.

Service is a calling, not just a job. The speaker suggests that customer service is fundamentally about the calling to serve.

All customers are people, not just numbers or figures in a database. This human connection is critical to remember in business interactions.

The speaker humorously mentions their experience of working on six continents and jokes about needing to speak in Antarctica.

Professionals in technical roles, such as finance or marketing, often don't see themselves as having customers, which is a misconception.

There is a tendency to separate oneself from customers, sometimes seeing oneself as 'better,' which the speaker critiques.

Service processes are meant to standardize customer service, not replace it, and focusing too much on process can undermine the customer experience.

The speaker promises to prove three points during the talk: that service is a calling, all customers are people, and everyone is replaceable.

Rules in businesses, such as banking and insurance, are often written to safeguard against risks, not to optimize opportunities.

The speaker stresses that many business processes lose sight of their purpose, which should be improving customer service, not adhering strictly to procedure.

Customer experience should take precedence over rigid processes, especially when those processes hinder rather than help customers.

All employees, regardless of how large or powerful their organization is, are replaceable, and no company has a divine right to exist.

First-generation business founders typically understand the importance of customers, while managers who focus on processes may lose that perspective.

The speaker challenges listeners to reflect on whether they are serving the process or the customer, a critical distinction in providing quality service.

In industries like food, retail, and banking, strict rules are necessary due to the nature of their products or services, but these should not come at the expense of customer service.

Transcripts

so what I thought I would do here today

is to talk about this number one

commodity or entity all of us deal with

every single day whether you are

employed or you run your own business

all of us have the single feature across

all of our Lives as a universal truth we

deal with this entity every day some of

us think we deal with it better than our

competitors in fact whatever it is that

you're doing how you deal with this

entity will give you a sense of your

proximity towards

success it's the single thing that all

of us here learn about we all know about

it and some of us think we're better at

dealing with it than the

rest but it and only it is the ultimate

truth of how it experiences you this

thing we call a customer

for whatever

reason when all of us start dealing with

customers we forget that we too are

customers now I've had by God's

incredible Grace and only by God's grace

the amazing privilege of working in six

of the seven

continents that are on this Earth of

ours the only one I have not spoken in

is

Antarctica so I've thought about whether

or not I should gather a couple of

penguins for me to go and address them

in Antarctica so that it would say in my

resume he's spoken in all seven of the

seven continents if you're not smiling

that was a

joke if the person sitting next to you

is not laughing write it down will

explain it to them at the end of the

session all of us no matter what it is

you do deal with

customers now here is the interesting

thing

one of the things I've learned over time

is that typically the more technically

trained people who operate in more

technical functions of an organization

tend to think that they don't have any

customers if you work at a large

organizations you typically will

experience that the people working in

finance don't see the rest of the

business as customer the people working

in marketing don't see the rest of the

business as customer the people working

in audit risk and compliance don't see

rest of business as customer all of us

every day deal with

customers all of

us what is interesting to note though is

that for whatever

reason we tend to separate ourselves

from those

customers we see ourselves as different

as other dare I say sometimes we see

ourselves as

better is that

painful we do we

do I'm going to prove to you over the

next hour three things and you can write

all three of these things down at the

end of the hour you can keep me

accountable and you can give me a

scorecard on whether or not I have

proven all three of these

things the first thing I'm going to

prove to you is this

service is a calling not a

job service is a calling it's not a

job so when we talk about customer

service really what we're talking about

is the calling to

serve now a lot of us myself included

have a way of measuring customer service

you might run a survey for inance

measure your net promoter score go

online and have a look at your reviews

by customers what these are are what we

call lag indicators they tell you what

has already taken

place but truly building a customer

Centric team that requires a certain

number of lead

indicators the most important of these

is the second thing I'm going to prove

to

you all customers are people

I know that's a shocker wow can you

believe it they are not a customer

number on a database oh my goodness can

you believe it they're not a figurehead

on a PowerPoint

presentation all customers are

people and why is this important because

all people have the same things in

common if I travel to shenzen in China

and then made my way out to quala lamp

po where I will be in a few months

time here in Cala or if I travel to

California in the United States I will

find that all people are

common they laugh they cry they pray

they hope they bring children into the

world hoping that it would be better for

them than it

was for their own

lives and yet for whatever reason when

we start dealing with these people we

forget

this the third thing I will prove to you

is perhaps the most difficult

one every single person in this room is

completely

replaceable Believe It or

Not nowhere in the Bible does it say

that on the eighth day God invented

whatever company you work

for believe it or not no matter how

large the organization you work for is

no matter how powerful your boss is no

matter how big your p&l is no matter how

large your market capitalization is

there was a time your business did not

exist nowhere is it written that you

have the Divine Right to

exist see what happens in my experience

is the following typically first

generation Runners and founders of a

business understand understand this they

remember a time when there was no

customer to grow and scale their

business they hire these people who are

technically trained at managing

processes we call these people

managers managers for whatever reason

tend to

forget that the role of a process is to

make customer service more efficient not

replace service in the

customer and so what tends to happen is

we focus more on the process than the

customer customer you ever been to an

organization and they tell you about

customer service department then when

you get to the customer service

department they tell you what the

process is to which you should ask the

question is this customer service or

process

service what are you here to serve me or

the process see when it comes to dealing

with customers to the extent to which

you make the process the end you lose

what the purpose of the process is which

is this it is to standardize customer

service and experience experience not

replace

it the rules are so that we know what

the standard is the rules are not so

that we know what the outcome is before

we even get started the question I have

for you is what's more important process

or customer experience even in the space

where all of you here work what is more

important

process or customer

experience everybody says customer

experence expence of course they do

until it actually comes down to it until

we've actually got to start making

decisions until we faced with doing what

we are told to do and doing what we know

is

right usually when I have these kind of

sessions there are Bankers in the room

hands up if you work in a

bank hands up Bankers you have my

deepest sympathies hands up all of you

Bankers are fairly easy to spot they're

usually in a tie yeah you see there I'm

right there I uh I'm absolutely right

we're the bankers hands up again good

we're the people that work in insurance

companies insurance people insurance

people are also fairly easy to spot they

have Smiles on their faces but they

really don't like their

jobs now hands up any of you here who

work in like fashion or retail who deal

with actual customers like every day

you're in food retail Fashion retail or

anything like this hands up there should

be about two or three of you in the room

you work in

retail food excellent excellent each and

every single one of these industries I

mention them because they have a

specific set of dictates around how they

do business see you have to have

dictates around how you do business

because the things you sell people

ingest you get it wrong you kill someone

the banks have to have rules around how

they do business because if they get it

wrong they're dealing with people's

money

the insurance companies definitely have

to have rules because if they don't

they'll be out of business because all

of us are not honest enough to only

submit claims that are purely

legitimate so the rules are the

Safeguard against the downside risk but

notice something rules are never written

to optimize the upside

opportunity if you want to optimize

upside opportunity that requires a

different set of rules and a different

set of thoughts