Excellence Wins: 10 Questions Can Change Brand Perception and Profits

At Deksia , we read business books and discuss amongst the team at our quarterly company meetings. This quarter, I’m responsible for hosting the book discussion for Excellence Wins : A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise . I’m excited to share my presentation with the team in a few weeks, but I thought the book was sufficiently engaging and insightful that I would share with you a few key questions the book asks of organizations interested in achieving excellence.

I’m no stranger to an obsession with excellence and winning in business. Just ask past Anvil employees and clients. I’ve even written about the subject from at least two perspectives:

·???????Impact Marketing: Winning Customers with Quick Wits

·???????Twenty Measurement Insights from a Career in Marketing

In his book, author Horst Schulze, co-founder of The Ritz-Carlton , outlines the best practices that helped him build a premium hotel empire. While that’s all fine and good, I was more inspired by the idea of creating first-class experiences at organizations of any size, service offering, or product price point, not just charging the highest possible price for the best possible experience. It all starts with a set of key questions that help create a culture of excellence, at all levels of a company. I’ve outlined my favorite questions below, which I recommend taking to leadership or your manager for discussion.

1.?????What is the first touch point with your clients? Years ago at Anvil , we audited our own clients’ customer journey and discovered the weak spot in our typical engagement was the occasional client office visits. When our clients arrived at our offices, they would likely end up standing at the entrance for a few minutes before an employee noticed and greeted them. That is because we never hired a receptionist or seated anyone at the front desk. Rather than hire a pretty face just to greet rare guests, our solution was to add a small sign on the entrance desk with instructions to walk further into the office and say ‘hi.’ We took it to the next level with scheduled client visits. Before arrival, our team would draw client logos or customized welcome messages to greet them. The former weak spot turned into a memorable moment for many clients.

2.?????How do you build trust quickly with a customer? I learned early in my career that speed matters. Being highly responsive to clients was more effective at building trust than doing exceptional work. Over time, you need both, but when it comes to retaining clients, I found providing responsive customer service was a leading indicator of future client satisfaction and retention.

3.?????What activities and communications create a sticky customer experience? When I started my public relations career in the mid-1990s, I regularly faxed articles and coverage to my clients. Apparently, I was an exception to the rule with that practice, as my clients regularly shared their appreciation. I still email articles of interest to clients to this day, which shows they remain top-of-mind and they may even benefit from insights gleaned from articles I share with them.

4.?????How do you maintain mindshare with customers to keep top-of-mind? It is a delicate balance to stay in regular contact with clients and not become annoying or mindful of budgets. While sending the aforementioned industry articles can be one effective strategy, another way we kept Anvil top-of-mind with our clients was to send an exclusive weekly email containing the latest digital marketing news and trends as determined by our team of experts. This Week in Marketing informed our clients for over a decade and created new value-added opportunities to expand the relationship.

5.?????Does your team have a discretionary budget to delight clients? Zappos gained notoriety for its exceptional customer service (giving customer service representatives a budget to solve customer issues. They weren’t the first, however. In the 1980s, The Ritz-Carleton gave every employee up to $2,000 to delight clients, and Shulze shared a few examples of the budgets being put to good use in his book. Even if you don’t have a set budget to delight clients, I highly recommend asking management for approval to make strategic investments in customers with thoughtful expenditures. For example, a few years ago, we bought a catered barbeque lunch for an East Coast client, as we understood our monthly review calls were scheduled during lunch and it was often difficult for them to eat while on the call. The gesture was greatly appreciated and earned our trust and respect.

6.?????How do you currently resolve client issues? Is there a defined process? I’ve shared my thoughts regarding resolving client issues in the past, but I’m happy to share them here again. My defined client resolution process has three steps: 1. Acknowledge how the client feels (regardless of fault) 2. Communicate how the issue will be resolved to ensure it never happens again (as I found many complaints were inherently selfless in nature, to ensure others didn’t suffer the same fate) 3. In the case where we are at fault, I offer to ‘make good,’ but start by asking the offended client what would make things right, and go from there. In some situations, the resolution is much more affordable than you expect, yet you’re able to make the relationship whole again.

7.?????Does management/leadership regularly connect with customers? I believe this is an essential step, especially for smaller companies or service-based businesses. At Anvil, I checked in with clients once or twice a year to see how the relationship was going and if there was anything I or we could do to improve the partnership. Without fail, I would glean insights and be able to reiterate our team’s questions or concerns, in order to improve understanding, alignment, and client satisfaction.

8.?????Are you using online listening to track customer comments/sentiments? When it comes to staying on top of client feedback online, I recommend setting up Google Alerts and Mention.com keyword alerts to ensure you are tracking key customer coverage, mentions, or reviews. You can use a variety of paid monitoring tools to specifically manage and monitor online reviews, but start simple with free tools and set aside time each week to check for new online reviews on websites like Yelp, Google My Business, and Glassdoor. Read more about my thoughts on managing customer reviews in my SmartBrief article.

9.?????Are you using surveys (like Net Promoter Score) to measure client satisfaction and maximize client retention? For most of the past decade at Anvil, we sent out an annual customer feedback survey, which was a modified version of the Net Promoter Score (NPS). I found the original NPS survey was too remedial and didn’t separate our account management from our ability to deliver results and a strong return on investment. I and other business leaders shared our thoughts on this subject in a recent Business Journals Leadership Trust article.

10.?How do you say goodbye to clients? As recently as this week, I learned about a gap in our past client offboarding process. While I’ve taken pride in our collaborative approach to transitioning client responsibilities upon exit, I discovered we missed getting clarity regarding oversight of digital ad campaign management. We’re taking this opportunity to plug the hole with a simple modification to our exit documentation and process. The objective of any exit process should be to always leave clients questioning their decision to part ways and leave the door open to their return in the future.

If your corporate culture supports direct and smart answers to these questions that lead to further optimization of the customer experience, you will no doubt see an increase in profits. By building strategies and processes around a culture of excellence, your clients will stick around longer, spend more with you, and be more likely to become brand ambassadors that help drive new business. Don’t wait, start a conversation with your coworkers and management today.