Too friendly, too fast

Traveling on the east coast this week, I’ve spent time using a number of car services, hotels, etc. in which the employees were very friendly (the rude New Yorker stereotype is not the norm, from my experiences, by the way).  The problem is that they got a little too friendly, too quickly. 

What do I mean?  On several occasions, the employees engaged me in conversations about very personal topics, or made inappropriate comments (to or about me and my traveling companions).

Many businesses strive to achieve “customer intimacy,” which means you know a lot about your customers and both sides feel engaged in a relationship.  The problem is that it takes time to earn the right to be intimate with your customers, and businesses need to make sure all customer-facing employees understand that.

Earning the intimacy

So how in the heck does a business earn your intimacy? There is no one answer, but some of the things that come to mind:

• Ask and listen: Ask your customer for feedback, ask about their expectations, and then listen to what they say.
• Pay attention : If your customer expresses a preference, try to honor it (better yet, remember that so they don’t have to express it again)
• Do a little extra at any opportunity: In Louisiana, we used the term “Lagniappe” to mean '”a little something extra.”  If you give your customers a little extra attention, they will notice.  Even little things like a bottle of water before they ask for it.
• Be respectful: Customers can tell when you are handling them with care, and taking them seriously.  Don’t just treat them like you want to be treated, do that plus a bit more.
• Anticipate their needs: Some hotels stand out because they give me what I like (such as coffee in the room, a great fitness center, room darkening shades, really comfortable beds, “emergency” supplies for when I forget a toothbrush, easy access to healthy late night snacks or light meals, and so forth.  When I see these things I think, “these folks understand me.”  When you’re dog tired on the road, that’s a nice feeling.  (Hey hotels:  I really love free WiFi…)

What kinds of things have you encountered that helped build customer intimacy?  Please share them here in comments (and any juicy stories of customer intimacy gone bad are welcome, of course!)

Rewards and habits

I was visiting Aubrey Daniels’ blog today and saw a fascinating video, below (link here):

This shows the power of “reward” in getting people to change their behaviors.  The challenge:  what is enough to get people to change?  They say that people generally change in order to move toward pleasure, or away from pain.

This is a good thing to keep in mind when motivating yourself and others – is there enough “pleasure” in the change you’re asking people to make?  And is it enough for them to want to bring others along?

How do you carry the load?

I saw an interesting quote from former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holz this week that got me thinking:

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”

I think that is very true from a few, important perspectives:

Perception

• Once upon a time, I worked with a product manager who always seemed overwhelmed.  He hurried from meeting to meeting, walked a bit hunched over, didn’t make much eye contact, and just sounded “down” when you tried to talk with him.  His product was doing “OK, but not great” and you could say the same about him.  The way he acted did not give me or others in the company the confidence that he was the one to help us drive great success in the market.  In short, he didn’t seem to be able to carry his load very well.
• In contrast I have worked with people who, even when everything is hitting the fan, come across as “in control” and exhibit a “can do” attitude.  They are better able to bring people into their world and get them to help create a successful outcome.
• Remember – people want to be part of a winning team’s success.  Does your team feel like a winning one?

Attitude

• Are you a “glass half empty,” “glass half full,” or a “you could do with a smaller glass” kind of person?  Your outlook and attitude will color your actions, so the better your attitude the better your results (in my experience).
• To go back to the product manager example, I have also had the pleasure of working with product managers who sought opportunity at every turn – even competitive losses – and managed to drive a successful business against the odds.  How?  A great attitude, hard work, and a compelling vision.  If that’s doesn’t describe you, maybe you’re in the wrong role.

Belief

• Underlying all of this is whether you believe you can succeed or not, which is rooted in whether you believe in yourself.  Do you?  It’s OK to be afraid, but you need to be on your own team – no matter what.
• If you believe in yourself but don’t believe in what you’re doing, it’s time to switch to something you do believe in.

Remember:  when you interact with people, you typically either add energy or drain energy during the interaction.  Which describes you?  What can you do to recognize when you’re draining the energy from the room?  What can you do to up the level of positive energy you emit?

The Backchannel – a video book review

I’ve been procrastinating long enough.  I’ve been deliberating about whether to start using video on this blog and decided to go ahead and give it a shot.  I’m starting off with a review of Cliff Atkinson’s latest book, “The Backchannel:  How Audiences Are Using Twitter and Social Media And Changing Presentations Forever,” so please let me know what you think.

Here are the links I mentioned in the video:

• Order “The Backchannel”
• Order “Beyond Bullet Points”
• Read my review of “Beyond Bullet Points”

Also, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of this format for book reviews and blog entries.

(By the way – thanks to Matt Hixson for the nudge in finally doing this)

Falling In Love With Your Life

I recently read a book by Alicia Castillo Holley, called “Falling In Love With Your Life.”  Actually, I intended to review this last month but I couldn’t find it.  It seems my teenage daughter saw it and took possession of it for a while without telling me.  That’s never happened before with any of my nonfiction books – and that, in itself, intrigued me.

When I initially read the title, I was interested but a little hesitant – is this a business book, or a relationship book? After digging in, I have to say it is really both of those things in one.

This book is an interactive book designed to help you analyze the assumptions and hypotheses that drive how you interact with the world.  As the author says, “You create your own life, the belief system, and the life you live.” 

Through this book, you’ll discover techniques to help you:

• Recognize and reframe your hypotheses
• Create new perspective
• Understand why you might beat yourself up about things in your life.

Thoughts on the exercises

The exercises in this book are challenging ones – make sure you approach them when you have plenty of time and energy, and the right mindset.  Many of them require deep reflection and candor (with yourself) to get the most out of them.

For example, the exercise where you name your existing hypothesis about life and write a new one was hard for me the first time I tried to do it – I was tired and crabby and I got fed up and quit. 

I came back to the same exercise another day when I was fresh and in a good mood and it was much easier.

I also found that it was helpful to write my responses to the exercises out on a yellow legal pad – I felt constrained by the amount of space in the book for some exercises, and I also found the yellow legal pad more forgiving when I wanted to have a “redo” on some of the exercises.

Be open to the process

Another aspect of the exercises was that some of them felt a bit “not meant for me” – but I did them anyway.  I found that even the ones that didn’t feel natural to me added value to some of the other exercises I did later.  It would have been easy to just jump over a couple of them (in fact I did, then went back and did them anyway).  I urge you to resist that temptation.

I now have a lot of things to think about and a new set of hypotheses to help me change how I see and interact with the world.  I don’t yet know the impact of this shift but I already feel less guilty about some of the things that have been bothering me.

If you are irritated or unhappy with things in your life, or you just want to feel more in control of your destiny I recommend you check out a copy of “Falling In Love With Your Life,” and spend some quality time working on the exercises.

Now, I’m giving my copy back to my daughter.  I think she’ll like it.