Positively Outrageous Service

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

~ President John Quincy Adams

The Influence of Inspiring Interactions on Positively Outrageous Service® and Relationships

https://youtu.be/pKXWNjtrMck

Recently I heard these words, "inspiring interactions" - WOW!

Five thoughts immediately came to mind:

Inspiring interactions require superior communication to foster engagement.

Inspiring interactions galvanizes influence.

Inspiring interactions infects.

Inspiring interactions cultivates Positively Outrageous Service.

Inspiring interactions build relationships.

The information age heightens and escalates expectations for both customers and employees - and if your organization can't meet them, they're going to leave you for your competitors.

To inspire another means they experience intense feelings of loyalty, a positive reaction that is motivating, or the urge or ability to do something creative.

When you creatively inspire the interaction with a team member or customer, you elevate engagement and enhance the relationship. And it all starts with superior communication. The words we use in a conversation, meeting, or email either elevates or erodes our engagement with another person. Choose your words carefully.

We all have influence. When we inspire a customer through an enhanced experience, they won't dream of going anywhere else, and they'll give you more business.

However, you can't inspire the customer without inspiring your team first. You can't have what we call "two faces" - inspiring interactions internally infect our influence and interactions externally with the experience we create for our customers.

Inspiring interactions through superior communication elevates engagement and infectiously influences our Positively Outrageous Service to our colleagues, teammates, and ultimately the customer. Positively Outrageous Service directly correlates to building relationships internally, first and secondarily to the customer.

And by the way practicing inspiring interactions makes you a leader with influence. The essence of leadership is best described in 19 words by President John Quincy Adams "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

Initiate inspiring interactions to invigorate your Positively Outrageous Service

and intensify relationships!

 

© 2021 Positively Outrageous Service, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Positively Outrageous Service is a registered trademark of Positively Outrageous Service, Inc.

You Can Have Too Much of a Good Thing!

https://youtu.be/jRnlQRtClME

Boss: “What do you think?”

Me: [going to the bathroom]

Boss: “Can you hear me?”

Me: [getting another beer]

Boss: “I think he's on mute.”

Me: [getting chips]

Boss: “Hello?”

Me: “Sorry I was on mute”

@RodneyLacroix

Do you feel exhausted after attending too many back-to-back virtual video meetings?

Virtual meeting fatigue became big news as significant sectors of the population attended school and worked remotely during the CoVid pandemic.

Dr. Mitchell, a neurologist at Sunnybrook, says, "We require additional effort and sustained attention during video meetings," "The added strain on our attentional systems and other cognitive processes can leave us feeling exhausted." 

Imagine going to a three-day all-day conference. The sessions are all back-to-back, with no breaks, no time for personal interaction, no time to check your emails or call your spouse. Probably time to eat or go to the bathroom! That would be exhausting!

Yes, there are some distinctive benefits to video calls as it's more personal and interactive, it:

Facilitates conversation details when you see the person's face and body language.

Improves conversation engagement as it's closer to the feeling of a real face-to-face meeting.

Improves Team Building 

But, there are also pitfalls to avoid - you can have too much of a good thing as well!

Here are our top tips based that are experiential and research-based that provide relief and make video calls less exhausting. Pick a few that YOU resonate with and would be easy to implement. Experiment and try others over time. 

Avoid multitasking. Research reveals doing multiple things at once cuts into performance. Swapping between tasks can undermine as much as 40 percent of your productivity. Researchers at Stanford found that people who multitask can't remember things as well as their more singularly focused peers. So on your next video conference call, close your other programs and tabs that will distract you. Yes, that includes your inbox and chat. Turn off your mobile phone. And be present, focused – and ultimately less exhausted.

Take a break!

Schedule frequent short breaks. Do something else; work on that other project; check your Email; take a walk. Make lunch, an espresso, or a smoothie. What you eat also impacts fatigue. 

Schedule and protect breaks on your calendar. Control your calendar, don't let your calendar control you!

Limit the meeting duration. There is a tendency to default to 60-minute meetings. Schedule more 30-minute appointments – better yet, make it a 25-minute session; now you have time to go to the bathroom! If it has to be 60 minutes, make it 50 or at most 55 minutes.

 

Stand up! In one 7-week study, participants who stood more often at their desks reported less fatigue and stress than those seated the entire day. Additionally, 87% of those standing reported increased vigor and energy throughout the day. If you don't have a stand-up desk, use a cardboard box. That's how the founder of VARIDESK® started! Additionally, if you're making a virtual presentation, you will have way more energy in a standing position than sitting down! 

Make space for fun. Start personal. It's okay to come in a few minutes early. You would do that in a face-to-face meeting. Connect personally with others and make the conversation fun. As others join, we are talking at a personal level first – just like you would as you enter a real conference room. I change my virtual backdrop every week, which makes for a fun conversation starter – it might be from a vacation trip or an amusing crazy background that invites a fun initial conversation.

https://youtu.be/5SgC6elyNVs

“The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them,

but to exceed them—preferably in unexpected and helpful ways”.

~ Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group

What Does Customer-Centric Mean?

If you ask ten people, you may get ten different answers. If your organization’s vision is customer-centricity, then we’d better agree on a single definition and what that entails.

According to Investopedia, “customer-centric is an approach to doing business that focuses on creating a positive experience for the customer by maximizing service and/or product offerings and building relationships.”

Customer-centric organizations ensure the customer is the epicenter of the organization’s vision, processes, operations, and most importantly, service excellence. Customer-centric organizations understand that their customers are the primary reason for their existence. They use every means to deliver an exceptional experience – what we call Positively Outrageous Service® (POS) - an experience that generates an undeniable feeling. Feelings feed into experience. An elevated experience enhances the relationship. An enhanced relationship ensures intense customer loyalty, revenue growth, and recommendations to others, generating additional customer referrals.

According to KPMG, 88% of CEOs are concerned about customer loyalty, recognizing that their customer needs and agendas are vital to success.

Business is all about relationships. Your customer’s experience elevates or undermines that alliance. There is no middle ground. Every experience and interaction with your organization’s processes and people impact their experience of you and hence the relationship. The customer experience is not centered on your product offering - it’s the experience surrounding and enhancing your offering.

We have a saying, “everything you do sends a message - everything you don’t do sends a message.” Every internal decision we make – how we handle every action, email, telephone call, delivery, problem, resolution, and process impacts the experience and, hence, the customer relationship.

Just imagine you’re a customer and have an issue with a business, and it takes 14 emails back and forth to resolve it. We know the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place – context is lost in the maelstrom. There’s miscommunication and misinterpretation galore. You’d have a whole lot of pent-up frustration and emotion, wouldn’t you? Would you want to deal with that business again?

The customer-centric agenda starts and ends with the needs of the customer. Customer-centricity is a business methodology that cultivates a positive customer experience at every phase of the customer journey. Every time a customer-centric organization makes a decision, it passionately considers its impact on the customer.

Furthermore, customer-centric organizations realize that Positively Outrageous Service starts internally.

Two things to remember:

Positively Outrageous Service is infectious. There is a direct correlation between a decision to Positively Outrageously Servicing your team and the impact on the customer. Studies show that for every two percent improvement in employee engagement and satisfaction correlates to a one percent increase in customer satisfaction that results in a two percent increase in customer revenue.

Everyone has a customer. We sometimes hear that our team or an individual isn’t in the front-line serving a customer. Everyone has a customer. Everyone in an organization interacts with others. Everyone who gives another’s support, interface, process, or relationship is serving that internal customer.

To successfully attain the customer-centric vision through Positively Outrageous Ser...

"One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."

~ Lou Reed

“FINE” Is an Open Door for Positively Outrageous Service®

https://youtu.be/4ZhG41PsiJE

"How are you doing?"

"I'm Fine!"

How often have you heard that!

Business is all about relationships.

Relationships are elevated or eroded by the experience one encounters.

Most conversations on the phone, in a meeting, on a video conference call, start with the question: "How are you doing."

Sometimes we will hear: "great," "fantastic," "busy," "overwhelmed," "fabulous," or "really good."

Often, we will hear,

"I'm fine."

Fine is, more often than not, a default, knee-jerk reaction when things aren't great.

We've all done it, I've done it.

Some years ago, someone asked me an additional question:

"How are you really doing?"

WOW!

That was random and unexpected!

I felt they cared. And I shared. And our relationship deepened.

Out of proportion to the circumstances.

In the British comedy-adventure film The Italian Job, a Cockney gangster Charlie Croker, says "I'm fine,"

Mr. Bridger, the crime syndicate boss, replies,

"You know what 'fine' stands for, don't you? Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional."

Let me repeat that: 'fine ‘ is an acronym for: Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.

The response "I'm fine" when we are not is simply a means to suppress our feelings because we don't think the other person would care to hear our real emotions.

The band Maroon Five's lyrics sing "I'm not fine, I'm in pain," is way more honest.

Speaking the truth sets one free, permitting one to be free from other constricting and fallacious aspects of life.

In my experience, when I hear "I'm fine!”

The other person is either Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, or Emotional unstable for some reason.

And I ask the additional question.

To them, it's random and unexpected:

"So, how are you really doing?"

Nineteen out of twenty times, the person is indeed not fine.

They share, they experience care.

Sometimes, if the circumstances warrant it: I've even prayed for them.

It's incredible how even the agnostic will accept prayer when their cart is in the ditch.

In any case, the relationship is elevated.

Positively Outrageous Service doesn't have to be complicated – showing you care distinguishes you from the competition.

Five words: "How are you really doing?" allows customers or team-mates to be impacted by your care, elevating the experience, enhancing the relationship.

How the customer feels about the relationship isn't necessarily about you per se, it's how they feel when they're around you! Why would they want to interact with anyone else but you!

We look forward to you being Positively Outrageous as you respond to their "I'm fine!"

© 2021 Positively Outrageous Service, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Positively Outrageous Service is a registered trademark of Positively Outrageous Service, Inc.

https://youtu.be/14OA3aMMc4g

"Think twice before you speak because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another."

~ Napoleon Hill

Influence and Impact Intensifies Positively Outrageous Service®

Don't you love being the Sheriff! Where you walk into that situation where what you say and what you do is just right!

You're on! Your timing is perfect. You walk away from that situation, "did anybody hear me? I was amazing!" You're a person of influence.

I think it happens all the time. You come in with guns a-blazing with superb solutions, or is the real impact and influence made in the conversations and the connection?

We all want to be influential, where we have the opportunities, where we are instrumental in moving things forward.

Having that level of impact and influence on the person in front of you leads to world-class customer experiences -- Positively Outrageous Service. Service excellence boosts sales. Serving one another creates a united world-class team that creatively works together despite the craziness of our days.

What is it that makes us influential?

Aren't there times when we miss opportunities that really could have taken us to the next level or taking that experience to the person in front of us through the roof? For instance, when you're in that situation that you heard 50 times already that day, but you have to go through it one more time.

"Caller Number 108! Can I help you?"

Maybe you're working with somebody who is having a bad day – and they say through gritted teeth, “yeeeees, I am on board, and I'm a team player.”

Or maybe you're in that situation where you're moving the solution a little too fast.

"You know what we should do is …",

 "No"

"Let's do this."

"I don't think you're hearing what I'm saying"

"Actually, the way I would handle that is this …"

 "I don't think you know my situation …" 

Why don't we …"

Sometimes we think being a person of influence is just having the solution. But you know, when we ride into that situation, and we're shooting out ideas all the time doesn't necessarily mean that we're effective or that we're influential.

We all work with people who, when they walk into a room, the lights get brighter. 

"Love you, love you, love you!"

And then there are some people that when they walk out the lights get brighter. 

Think about the time when you were in front of somebody that did their job well;  a face-to-face moment, a telephone moment when you were glad you were talking to that specific person. Why did you like that person? Was it because they had the big guns and all the answers? Was it because of their approach? Was it because of their heart? Was it because of the way they made you feel about you?

Consider this, the person that you're dealing with works behind their eyeballs. They don't get a chance to see themselves. All they know about themselves and the impact they’re having is from the input they're getting from the outside world.

The first place we start as a person of influence is to understand that I significantly impact how you see me. The quicker I can let you know that I am for you, that I am actually on your side, the faster we're going to get past defensiveness and move to a solution. Making a conscious choice to have a heart for somebody is not just an attitude it's also an approach. It shows up in your tone of voice. It shows up in your face. It shows up in your body language. It shows up in that word that you choose to say.

Ask yourself, where is my heart in this issue?

What is my heart towards the person in front of me?

https://youtu.be/vB3_UFIlDGc

“The internal customer experience drives the external customer experience”

~ Andrew Szabo

Don’t Overlook a Very Important Customer -- Your Employees and Teammates!

Who is your customer?

Who are you serving?

Whoever you provide a service to is your customer.

Positively Outrageous Service® (POS) isn't only about creating an excellent experience for your external customers, clients, patients, or guests. Not everyone in an organization is in the front-line dealing with the external customer. Positively Outrageous Service is just as essential to implement internally.

Everyone in an organization has to interact with others.

Your internal customer is every bit as important as the external customer. Perhaps even more critical. When we serve another teammate, or as a leader, your team, Positively Outrageous Service comes into play.

Anyone who experiences your support, interface, process, or relationship is an internal customer.

For example, IT, payroll, HR, legal, and administration are typical examples of internal functions serving other employees. However, anyone that supports another person providing data or resources is serving that stakeholder.

In actuality, to have a cohesive, consistent, consolidated culture means that everyone has a role in supporting others in an organization. Poor internal service results in a splintered organization, turf wars, and ultimately poor inconsistent service to the external customer.

Here are three indispensable considerations when serving an internal customer:

Employees who are the beneficiaries of Positively Outrageous Service feel appreciated and empowered. POS motivates and drives higher performance levels in themselves - to serve others, whether internally or externally. Besides, when employees have the resources, tools, information, and processes to excel, you enable them to perform to extraordinary levels.

Motivated, appreciated, empowered employees are more engaged and less likely to leave. Employee retention increases, costs decrease, and often they are advocates attracting others who are like them - service naturals!

Employee satisfaction is as critical as customer satisfaction. Engaged, happy, motivated employees provide higher levels of service to customers. If they are disgruntled, distressed, or unmotivated, their performance deteriorates.

Want a new business growth strategy? – inspirationally interact and infect your employees with Positively Outrageous Service. There is a direct correlation between employee and customer satisfaction, as well as increased revenue growth. Every two percent improvement in employee satisfaction and engagement results in a one percent elevation in customer satisfaction rippling out to a two percent increase in revenue!

Positively Outrageous Service is infectious - love on each other internally, and the front-line will love on the customer.

The three principles of Positively Outrageous Service apply with internal customers too:

Have them encounter the random and unexpected - which takes forethought on your part!

Have them experience things that are out of proportion to the circumstances.

And don't forget to be playful and fun!

Finally, for it to become inculcated into your culture, it necessitates internal customer excellence through POS to be a habit and not just a one-off, occasional occurrence.

We look forward to you being Positively Outrageous with your internal and external customers!

 

 

© 2021 Positively Outrageous Service, Inc., Positively Outrageous Service® is a registered trademark of Positively Outrageous Service, Inc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs08-l5lJ-s

“A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” ~ Dale Carnegie

Names Are Important for Positively Outrageous Service®

William Shakespeare, around here we call him "Bill," wrote, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." In customer-speak, we guess Bill Shakespeare was making the point that it doesn't matter so much what you call your customers; it's how you treat them that counts. But as they say in the infomercials, "But wait! There's more." A lot more.

How sweet are your customers? What name do you even call your customers?

Everything you do and say sends a message. Let's face it, there is a hierarchy of names that we could call our customers, and each one implies something different. Some are more outrageous than others. There are members, guests, clients, customers, tenants, passengers, and patients. Each category implies something different.

At the very top is a member; membership has its privileges. When you have guests, that implies hospitality - it suggests that you're uniquely serving them. Clients denote that there's a relationship - lawyers and accountants have a relationship with their clients. Customers are the generic name but tend to be slightly more transactional, especially in the retail environment. At the bottom, we have passengers that no longer have stewards and stewardesses but flight attendants – it sounds like they are focused more on the flight versus the passengers. And last of all, we have tenants and patients.

The Words We Use Set Expectations in Positively Outrageous Service

There's a hospital that decided not to call their patients, patients! The connotation of a patient is they wait, not being served. They decided to call their hospital patients guests. That one shift significantly changed the attitude of their staff. They started serving and attending to their guests in guest rooms, not hospital beds. They went from patient care to really caring for the patient.

The words we use to describe our customers and our employees set expectations for how we want customers to be treated and how we expect our employees to behave. Employees of Wal-Mart are described as "Associates." At Sam's Club, they are "Partners," and at Ritz Carlton, the staff and the folks they serve who might otherwise be known as guests are referred to as "ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." That's Positively Outrageous!

And then there is Dick's Last Resort, where customers can expect to be verbally abused, and for some odd reason, they seem to look forward to the hazing.

And finally, the best name to use that is Positively Outrageous and so sweet to their experience of you is their actual name. Ameen, Andrew, Angel, Christof, Christy, Jennifer, Michael, Michele, Nicole, Rob, Wendy. The sweetest and most important sound.

 

Using a person's name repeatedly in a conversation draws them in and creates engagement. Engaged conversations tend to be more interactive with more positive responses and feedback.

We think the point has been made.

Calling customers by name is the best approach. And that's final!

The value of in doing so, you are subtlety signaling that there is "something different" about your approach to service. And different is good. Just be careful.

If you are going to raise expectations to deliver Positively Outrageous Service, be sure you can keep the promise.

And we look forward to you Positively Outrageously Serving customers by name!

You want to raise your expectations to a Positively Outrageous Service standard contact us at 972.740.2037!

© 2021 Positively Outrageous Service, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Positively Outrageous Service is a registered trademark of Positivel...

https://youtu.be/JSw4_eEdvzU

Fun and Playfulness are the Virus of Positively Outrageous Service®

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation" ~ President Harry S. Truman

Rarely do we wake up in the morning thinking today I'm going to fail miserably, and I'm going to bring everyone down with me. I say "rarely" because it does happen, and there are some people out there that like that. However, most of us want to be part of something fun, and we want to play in a place where you're having a good time. We want you to have a good time because if you're having a good time, I'm having a good time. The reality is that we often spend more of our working hours with you than I sometimes do with my own family! So, if I'm going to have to be here, then let's have some fun. 

In this two-minute touchpoint, let's bring up this idea. Are you having fun? And it's not necessarily because we want you to have a good time and everything should be all about let's have a good time. But it's about the impact of your fun on others. When you're having a good time, it almost permits the people next to you or around you to have fun and be playful - whether they're working with you or experiencing your customer experience. But we get permission to have a good time because you're having a good time. 

I guess the bottom line is you go. When it comes to having a good time, you go first when it comes to having fun. Set the precedents, have a smile on your face, see things more lightly and allow yourself to see the humor in what's going on around you. Because people next to you will say if you're doing that, then I'm doing that too because fun is infectious. 

Your customers will do the same thing; if you're having a good time, then I'm going to have a good time. And you watch what happens to the experience all because you chose to have more fun. 

Fun and playfulness are infectious. Infect the people around you. We're the virus, so be a virus for an excellent customer experience and be positively outrageously contagious. 

Spread the germs of Positively Outrageous Service through fun and playfulness.

Find Ways to Say Yes to the Customer – That’s Positively Outrageous Service®

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOQigR3zCKM

I roared into the microphone, “What’s the best hotel in the city?!”

Three hundred employees in unison yelled, “Park Hyatt Washington!”

“What’s the one word we never say?!”

“NO!”, they all screamed.

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

We had an extreme philosophy of Positively Outrageous Service to never say no to a customer.

Let me give you an example of this. One day we had a Sheik with his entourage coming to stay for a whole month. They didn’t like where the light fixture was situated in the dining room of their suite. He said, “can you move it over about four feet?” Move the light fixture? The front desk clerk didn’t want to say no, so he went to his front desk manager. He didn’t want to say no either. The front desk manager said, “I’m not quite sure how we are going to do this.” And he went to the Rooms Executive. The Rooms Exec., went to the Chief Engineer, and the Chief Engineer had to figure out, “how am I not going to say no to this.” The Chief Engineer figured out how he could move that light fixture. It was going to cost $5,000.

They went back to the Sheik and said, “Sir, we have no problem moving that light fixture. It will take $5,000 to move it and then to move it back at the end of your stay.”

The Sheik said, “no problem, put it on our room account please.”

Positively Outrageous Service so extreme it's unforgettable! How extreme do you get with your customer, client, or guest experiences? Do you figure out ways to say yes even under the most challenging circumstances?

Extreme positively outrageous service customer experiences will forever be remembered. I’m certain that Sheik shared with others his experience, and I’ve told that story for over 20 years. And that’s one of the many beauties of Positively Outrageous Service.

When you create a customer experience where it is out of proportion to the circumstance people can’t help but to talk about it.

Positive word-of-mouth marketing comes from Positively Outrageous Service.

What are you doing to not say no to a customer?

 

What are you doing to not say no to a customer? For a complimentary POS Assessment contact us at 972.740.2037!

 

https://youtu.be/HwAFMGDkHwc

Dealing With An Irate Customer or Frustrated Team Member

When Positively Outrageous Servicing an infuriated customer or frustrated colleague, we need emotional intelligence. The Navy Seal Creed says it all:

"The ability to control my emotions and actions sets me apart from other men." ~ Navy SEAL Creed.

In the last episode, we examined three emotionally intelligent suggestions to diffuse anger with an irate customer or distraught team member.

Use their name, exercise reflective listening, and practice empathy.

So here's three more.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

4. Recognize their baggage

We all have emotional baggage. Unprocessed emotions and insecurities from past experiences create emotional baggage. It negatively impacts relationships and can be toxic in our ability to converse and effectively relate to another. For example, an organization fails to deliver multiple times on its promises. Once is an anomaly. Twice can be a coincidence. Three times is a pattern of behavior. A customer who experiences this over-promise and under-delivery will potentially harbor resentment, trauma, and other potential emotions that hamper our effectiveness in delivering excellent service.

Customer baggage handling that is Positively Outrageous Service reestablishes trust and confidence. Three tips for baggage handling:

Watch for cues and clues and take ownership.

Unload the baggage. Ask about the customer or team member's prior interactions – the past casts shadows on the present. Acknowledge it, don't minimize but seek to resolve outstanding issues.

Don't increase the baggage. If you can't unload it, don't add to it. Acknowledging another's concerns and prior experiences alleviates weight increases. Augment the positive. Cushion the negative.

5. Split It Up

Break it down. In the tornado of the moment, often multiple issues are being thrown at you by a heated customer or irate colleague. Parse them out. Some will easier than others to resolve. Tackle the simple ones first, gain understanding and agreement that will increase confidence and trust in you by the other person. Convey an apology for the issues they're experiencing, but you can't apologize endlessly. Giving them a singular, definitive solution is good. Better yet,  presenting options, especially for complex situations, is beneficial since you empower them to decide for themselves the best course of action. We all like options!

Photo By Robin Higgins from Pixabay

6. Stay Calm

When dealing with an angry person, don't let irritation get the better of you. Don't fall into the temptation to copy their tone and voice - it will only exacerbate the situation.

Avoid responding too hastily after they make a statement. You'll have a more productive dialogue, remaining calm and taking a moment to ponder your answer.

When responding to a text, chat, or email, proofread your response to ensure you avoid aggressive language. If time permits, step away for a few minutes and return to your drafted response before sending it to the customer or colleague. A break and a fresh perspective helps to filter out any insensitive words.

When you're calm with a frustrated individual, you can disrupt the emotional escalation spiral and tackle the underlying problems that caused the anger. That's Positively Outrageous Service!

Summary and Bonus

Photo By Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash