The Heart of the Matter - Part 1

It is time to dive into the heart of the matter.

I’ve had the incredible opportunity to train and work at Walt Disney World. While this has largely shaped my perspective on how to interact with customers, I recognize that not every company can be Disney. I believe this caliber of service can be attained, but how you do so must be in line with your individual brand.

So before you start calling yourself “cast members” and ending every conversation with “have a magical day”, we need to take the Disney way of thinking and apply it locally. We desire the quality of service that Disney offers without the stringent dress code and facial hair requirements. So, what is the underlying theme that, when properly applied, can impact our overall quality of service?

I believe there are two key elements that can be identified between a poor customer interaction and a great one. These two points leave you feeling genuinely served, while the lack of one or the other leads to missed expectations. You expect to be taken care of. When you’re not, you flex those Google review muscles and write staggeringly emotional diatribes.

In its simplest form, excellent customer interactions happen when:

1. You know the individual you’re interacting with cares about you.
2. You know the individual you’re interacting with has a plan to take care of you.

Let's take a closer look at the first one here. We will address the second in the next post.

When They Care

We’ve all felt it.?

Whether you’re on the phone with technical support for an internet outage or asking a sales associate why your favorite brand of cereal is out of stock, you can quickly conclude if that individual actually cares. Cares about you, cares about your problem, and cares about doing their job well.

This comes in many forms. Hearing words mimicking a script written by a knockoff brand of ChatGPT or feeling the breath of heavy sighs from a disgruntled and underpaid lackey, you instantly feel the need to justify your existence. Excuse me, person (or bot?), I’m paying actual dollars for the opportunity to have this uncomfortable conversation. Please pay attention and interact with me as if you care.

It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask. We, as humans, generally have a sense of sympathy toward others. Unless you are clinically a sociopath like Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, you’d understand that you are speaking to a human who has other things going on in their life.

As a side note, the more I interact with people the more I recognize how much “stuff” people are going through. On a daily basis, you could be talking with someone who has a close relative with a terminal illness, got in a car accident that morning, is massively in debt, has marital issues at home, and anything in between.?

There is a simple, yet profound impact you can have on all your customer interactions. You can care. To care about their problem, to care about their inquiries, to care about the individual.

It may seem like the idea of caring about someone or something is not trainable. Meaning, don’t you need your heart to grow three sizes that day like the Grinch in order to experience this transformation? Maybe, but what seems lost in current business training is the idea that we intuitively have the key to caring about people. That key is that we know how we want to be treated.?

We don’t want someone to tell us company policy in order to ignore our issue. We don’t want to be blamed for the wrong that has occurred. We don’t want to be treated as naive and taken advantage of. Simple, right?

Example:

Let’s say I purchased some batteries from a local hardware store. I drove from my office 10 minutes down the road during my lunch break, spent $7.99, and then went back to work. Upon arriving home that evening, I took a closer look at the honey-do list and found that I missed an “A” on the battery selection. We needed AAA’s, not AA’s.

So that toy for my son that required these batteries, you know, the one I promised he could play with that night? Right, it’s a no-go. Literally, and figuratively given that a remote control car minus a power source equals sadness.?

Not only did I mess up on the text from my wife, which led to arguments regarding my poor communication tactics, but I also let my son down by not delivering on a promise. I feel grossly underqualified as a parent and husband and now I have to go back to that hardware store and face the consequences.

The interesting thing about all of this is that the cashier doesn’t need to know ANY of my back story in order to treat me like he cares. He just needs to know that I’m human and to think how he’d like to be treated in this scenario. I walk in, dejected and with my head hung to the floor, drop the batteries on the counter, and ask to return these.

“You got the wrong batteries, didn’t you?”

I’ve already heard this a few more times than I care to admit. No need to further clarify my stupidity.

“Absolutely, would you like a store credit or did you just need to swap these for different batteries?”

That's what I needed. Not accusing me of getting the wrong ones, not holding me over the fire of company policy, and not passively servicing my request. Simple, direct, and helpful.

Caring for others is the first step to treating them well. While this concept is oversimplified for the sake of this medium, the question should be asked; how do you promote a culture of genuine caring?

Side Note: Do you think this only applies to customer service? Think again. The next time you write an email campaign, think about how you’d want to be reached out to, what information would be helpful for you, and what should and shouldn't stand out. The next time you are on a sales call, think about how this product or service would benefit you. The next time you are balancing debits and credits … Never mind.?

Like I said, I believe it starts with treating others the way you’d want to be treated. It’s about putting yourself in the shoes of the individual you are interacting with and being as helpful as you are able.?

You are the expert on what can and cannot be done at your establishment. You are also able to determine the customer's immediate needs and requests. The more you can align those two things to solve people's problems, the better that interaction will go.