Re:Focus

No One Has A Passion For Customer Service...So Stop Saying You Do

I love it when companies say things like, "customer service is our passion"...because it's a flat-out lie.

Our passions are formed when we're young and there is not a single person involved in customer service in any company today that dreamed of being in customer service as a child.  Not a single one was lining up their teddy bears pretending to help them fix a software issue, get their cable TV working or helping them return an item of clothing that they've clearly already worn.

The truth is no one has a passion for customer service so saying it lacks any credibility whatsoever.  It is totally inauthentic.

However...

There are lots of people out there who care about other people.  There are many people in the business world who carried their teddy bear with them where ever they went and tucked it in to bed at night.  Later in life, the teddy bear was replaced by people.  These same kids genuinely cared about other kids on the playground.  They made sure everyone got invited to the birthday party so no one would feel left out.

And as adults - those same people make the best customer facing employees - not because they have a passion for customer service, but because they genuinely care about people.

If you want to offer great customer service, then hire people who care about other people then give them the tools and the freedom to do it.

And if you want to tell people about your "passion for customer service," try saying this instead: "we only hire people who care about other people." And, if you actually do it, your customers will feel the difference.

Do You Want To Be A Leading Company or A Leader?

There's a difference between being a leading company and a leader.  Leading companies sell more than everyone else.  Those who lead set the direction for the rest of the industry.  Here's what it takes to be a company that leads.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

To read more about what it takes to lead, read Start With Why.

And to be one who leads, give your copy away to someone you want to inspire...

Start With Why

Read an excerpt - http://bit.ly/L26zk

Twitter - @simonsinek

Which Way Is Your Monkey?

Too many companies are organized like a tree of monkeys. Everyone at the top, looking down, sees only smiles. But everyone at the bottom, looking up, sees only asses.

Self-serving leaders are keen to climb up the tree. Their careers may do well, but they are not leaders. The higher they go up the tree, the more people who can see that they are just another ass trying to make their way up the tree.

The servant leader faces down the tree. They concern themselves with getting more of the people looking up to see a smile - to see something good.  To inspire them. People would rather follow the smile than the ass. 

The good news is that the servant leader's career still does well.  Though those at the top of the tree may see something somewhat disagreeable, the smiles beneath that servant leader, the loyalty they command and their ability to inspire, can not be ignored.  In fact, it is rewarded.

Being a downward facing monkey is the best strategy to avoid short-term pitfalls in a career and for a company. If you're a servant leader, all those beneath you, looking up, will tell you which branches to look out for.  No one is looking out of the self-serving monkey.  No one cares what happens to that ass.

Membership Had Its Privileges

Being a member of American Express (and “member” was indeed the term) used to mean something. To carry that green card with the Roman centurion in your wallet was a sign of success, a sign of independence, proof that you were going somewhere. But the brand built on the premise of “Membership has its privileges” seems to have forgotten its cause and become just another company selling credit-card services. In an attempt to capture all the market segments, to have something for everyone, AmEx has tarnished its brand.  And worse, it’s hurting its own business.

Anyone who has an American Express card knows that it’s not accepted everywhere—but we were okay with that. The occasional inconvenience was acceptable. As with any premium brand, there was a price to be paid because we wanted to be part of an elite group. We didn’t carry an AmEx card because of  universal acceptance, anyway; we carried it because it was a symbol of who we were.

But no more. What had once been an exclusive club has thrown wide its doors to admit everyone. Suddenly, membership doesn’t feel so special anymore. The entire concept of membership—the whole idea of premium—is that it’s exclusive. The physics of it are unavoidable: The more you appeal to the masses, the less exclusive you become, and the less value your premium possesses.

This degradation is no theoretical matter: With the loss of value inevitably comes the loss of business. Card carriers hear the phrase, “I’m sorry, we no longer accept American Express,” more frequently now than ever before. I understand a small business’s decision to stop accepting the card; the fees, they say, are too high. But for me, the real red flag started waving when my American Express card was denied at H&M. The clothing chain has 175 stores in the U.S. and 1,800 worldwide. Last year, the company rang up $14 billion in sales—and it no longer takes American Express.

Only a bit less disconcerting is to slide your AmEx card across the counter and be told by the cashier that the store “prefers” that you use Visa or MasterCard, if you have one. There was a day when “members” insisted on using their AmEx cards. We did this because the experience of using it meant something to us. These days, more people are all too happy to flip through their wallets and pluck out the alternate plastic, as requested.

And that’s a problem. When those who pay to be a member of a club—and once a year, the membership fee still pops up on their statements—no longer defend the club as though it were their own, it’s a sign that the brand is slipping. Almost every AmEx cardholder also carries Visa or MasterCard, but not all Visa or MasterCard holders carry American Express. In other words, AmEx holders have a choice—and they are becoming increasingly indifferent to that choice.

Consumers’ appreciation of their American Express membership has never had anything to do with points or air-miles. Those are tricks that lots of companies use to drive repeat business—but it’s not the same thing as loyalty. Loyalty is the willingness to pay a premium, or even to turn down a better product, in order to continue doing business with the same company. Like any couture label, the American Express’s centurion was a badge of honor, and a physical symbol of living the American Dream. “Privilege,” as AmEx should know, isn’t about perks—it’s a feeling you imbue in your loyal customers.

And what of the retailers? Retailers rarely have nice things to say about AmEx anymore. They complain that it takes AmEx forever to pay them. The retailers are just as much a constituency as the cardholder; they should be made to feel like members, too. When a company has a strong brand, its constituents either tolerate the inconveniences or rationalize them away. But when the brand is weak, the only thing people focus on is what’s wrong.  And it gets worse. AmEx used to be one of those stocks that people held onto for the long term. But it’s very different now.  Like its product, AmEx stock is becoming just another equity, and investors bail out at the slightest hint of a cloudy day.

It all boils down to a few essentials: Great companies are built on the backs of the loyal, not the masses. AmEx no longer has shareholders, it has share-squatters. AmEx no longer boasts members, it gets visitors. And retailers no longer want to be a part of a purportedly exclusive club when they can get all the same services at the YMCA. Serving the mass audience and the luxury audience is fine—but you can’t do it with the same brand. Honda has Acura. Toyota has Lexus. American Express needs another card. Call it, say, People’s Express. People’s Express can chase market segments and go head-to-head with MasterCard and Visa. Meanwhile, that proud centurion on the AmEx card needs to stand for something again.

Learn how to keep your membership exclusive.

Read a free chapter from Simon's new book Start With Why

Read Now - http://bit.ly/L26zk

Twitter - @simonsinek

Article originally featured in BrandWeek.  

The Best Thing You Can Have Is Bad Intelligence

During the Cold War, America would fly spy planes over the Soviet Union to count how many bombers they had. Knowing exactly what the Americans were doing, the Soviets laid out hundreds of fake, wooden bombers to trick the Americans into thinking that they had a much bigger capability than they actually did.  The problem was, America believed its own intelligence and built real bombers to counter the perceived Soviet threat. 

It wasn't until after the fall of the Berlin Wall did we learn that, if we ever had gone to war with the Soviet Union, we would have annihilated them because our resources vastly outnumbered theirs.  This massive unfair advantage would not have happened if it weren't for the good fortune of some bad intelligence. 

Believing that your competition is stronger and better than you will pushes you to better yourselves. Whether real or perceived, believing you have a disadvantage forces you to find new and clever ways to compete. It's always the organizations that are resourced constrained that come up with the good ideas to win.

You can save money on competitive analyses by simply pretending that whatever your competition is doing, they are doing it better than you. This works no matter if you're the leader or the challenger.  Instead of constantly trying to compare what you're doing to others, focus instead on constantly trying to improve yourself and the way you do things. You should believe, true or not, that there is always someone lurking on the horizon waiting to take advantage of you.

The greatest threat any organization can face is not its competition but its own success. With great success comes complacency - the false belief that you are the best and that you don't have to worry. The problem is, you'll only realize it's a false belief when someone else catches you by surprise. This pattern is repeated over and over and over. Wal-Mart, Microsoft and General Motors all believed that they were unbeatable...until a company who believed they were not as strong found a better way to compete with the 800lb gorilla.

Who Cares About Customers?

One day, when you get old, would you like your family to support you or would you like them to care about you?

If you're family supports you, that means they will pay the bills for the old age home, call you the prescribed number of times and visit you on your birthday. But if they care about you, they will visit you more often and not on any set schedule. They will bring the grand kids over and make sure you get an extra helping of marshmallow sweet potatoes (your favorite) at Thanksgiving.

No one wants to be supported, we want to be cared for. So why are so many companies so proud of their "customer support?" You see it all the time on websites...the link in the upper corner that says simply, "support." To most that means giving you the ability to send an email with your question.  Support means answering your questions and acting in the prescribed manner.  But "care," that's an entirely different standard. Care is human...like the customers.

There is power in words - just as you plainly understood the difference when I asked you if you wanted to be supported or cared for when you get old, so too does that word impact the behavior of the people we hire to support...er...care for...our customers.  Firstly, the department itself is usually called, "customer support."  It should be called, "customer care."  We tell those who work in the department to offer "customer support."  We should be telling them to "care for our customers."

We, as customers, can always tell the difference too.  A customer support agent who has been told to offer "support" tends to follow a script.  They tend to be matter-of-fact about things. And even if the problem is not resolved to your satisfaction, they will actually tell you all the things they've done to help you and that there is nothing more they can do. That is, by all fair metrics, good support.

But customer care agents who have been told to take care of the customer, will talk to you differently.  They have more patience.  They will go out of their way or even ask one of their colleagues for help if they don't know the answer.  There is no script.  They don't need one.  If you hire someone who likes people and you tell them to take care of other people, there is no special training required...just special words to inspire them to do the right thing...to take care.

Values Must Be Verbs

Corporate values are so often written as nouns: integrity, respect, innovation.  But for values to be actionable, for you to hold people accountable to them, them must be verbs.  Here's A clip from my recent interview with Capture Your Flag.

To learn more about how to manage the values in order to build a strong corporate culture, one in which innovation and trust are the norm, check out chapter 6 of Start With Why. It describes how to build trust in any organization.

The Difference Between Direction and Directions

There is a difference between giving directions and giving direction.

Direction is the far-away destination to which you are heading and directions are the route you will take to get to get there.

As leaders and managers, we often forget the distinction.  When we want to tell someone to do something, we give them directions when we should be giving them direction. Great leaders do not get involved in the details of what route is taken, they focus on ensuring everyone is clear of the destination.

Once established, a leader needn't obsesses about the short-term gains or losses, but rather the long-term trend.  If a submarine commander, for example, says head north, he doesn't focus on the frequent course corrections, he just wants to feel confident that his ship is heading due north.  The same is true for any company or organization.

Any leader who spends too much time worrying about the directions instead of the direction risks destroying any morale, creativity and commitment they may have gained.  Worse, while looking down, they will miss what's far ahead.

Directions are instructions given to explain how. Direction is a vision offered to explain why.

Directions are given by teachers, of which there can be many. It is for you to decide which directions suit you best.

Direction is set by a leader, of which there can be only one. It is for you to decide if you want to go on the journey or not.

Direction must always come before directions otherwise how will people know where they are going?

The next time someone asks you "what do you want me to do?" Don't answer their question.  Don't give them directions.  Point and offer them the direction you want to go in and let them figure out the rest. That's what all the great leaders do.

Advertisers Ruin Yet Another Medium. This Time, The iPhone.

We complain about there being too much advertising in magazines.  We love our DVRs so we can skip the ads when we watch TV. We call the advertising sent to us in the mail, "junk." And we install "blockers" to suppress the pop-up ads that want our attention while we're surfing the internet.  It seems no matter how hard we try to avoid it, advertisers will always find a way to get in there messages in our faces. If there's a wall or a construction site or a bus stop - if they can find a way to stick an ad on it, they will.  So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that advertising is slowly becoming more and more invasive on the iPhone. 

I'm quite fond of my iPod Touch (my telephone-less version of the iPhone) and I download apps on a fairly regular basis. Early on, there wasn't a single ad on any of the apps. Slowly but surely, however, the ads started to creep in.  For a while, they didn't bother me. There were banner ads at the top or the bottom of a screen. Fairly unobtrusive. But now? It's pop-up city. More and more app makers are trying to up-sell you on a new version or another app. I hesitate to turn on my iPod now because it's starting to feel like I'm walking on to a used car lot.

What Apple has created is remarkable. Not only is it a clever piece of technology, but it has become a legitimate marketplace. Many years ago, Sears allowed us to shop without going to the store with their beast of a catalog. The internet offered another marketplace, for which some companies, it is their only store front. The iPhone/iPod is the new frontier for commerce. The majority of the money passing through the device is from buying apps to use on the device itself. But not for long. You can already order a pizza to be delivered from Pizza Hut. You can buy a book to read from Amazon. Soon we'll be shopping for just about everything from our little pocket shops.

I applaud Apple's ingenuity for creating this new marketplace. And I've always appreciated Apple's obsession with simplicity and user friendliness.  If you buy a PC, in contrast, the desktop is jammed with all kinds of icons from third party sellers trying to hock their wares - Norton wants to sell you some anti-virus package, AOL would love to sell you something too.  It takes at least 30-60 minutes to decontaminate a new PC of all the sales pitches before we can start enjoying your new computer. Apple never went down that root. You buy a new Macintosh and all you get is...a new Macintosh.

But not the iPhone. Apple is letting the app makers destroy the simplicity of it all. I'm all in favor of iPhone-commerce, but can't Apple create rules about the advertising to protect the user-experience? If things keep going the way they are, the iPhone is in danger of, dare I say it, looking like a PC.

What do you think of that Mac?