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Andrew Stotts – Customer Service Coaching Cards |Expert Interview
Mastering the Art of Service
Join Darren A. Smith and Andrew Stotts as they explore our deck of Customer Service Coaching Cards. Dive into the world of customer service with Andrew Stotts.
You Can Read the Full Customer Service Coaching Cards Podcast 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.
Read our return policy
>> 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:
View all episodes
By Darren A. SmithMastering the Art of Service
Join Darren A. Smith and Andrew Stotts as they explore our deck of Customer Service Coaching Cards. Dive into the world of customer service with Andrew Stotts.
You Can Read the Full Customer Service Coaching Cards Podcast 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.
Read our return policy
>> 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: