Customer service and relationship management for Government

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one of the challenges of good times is it breathes laziness right think about let's like the cable company like when you have a monopoly i mean how much do you really have to give them it's not like they can go anywhere right so the worst customer service the worst products are usually the ones that have a monopoly position because there's just no there's no competition there's no there's no reason to push or challenge or do better um other than just goodwill i guess um uh uh and so i think when when times were good um we get lazy because if you leave there'll be someone else to take give us your business you know it'll be fine i think in hard times where where the stresses are higher because there's there is less business i think it forces us to actually go back to the base basics of what it means to run a good business and the best customers are the loyal ones um the ones who will stick with you through thick and thin um and so when you engage in relationship building when you when you act in a trustworthy manner when just like just like i gave the tribal example before when we as customers get a sense that you would sacrifice your interest to take care of us we'll give you our love and our loyalty and pay you a premium um you know when when when you when you go back to nordstrom's um and you have a sweater from bloomingdale's and you're like can i return this please they'll take it back um and the reason they'll take it back is because it's fine so they'll lose money on the sweater but they made you incredibly happy this is a decision they made so i think one of the things that it's revealed right now is that we have to bring our a-game that we don't get to be lazy anymore um and also relying on manipulation just it it's good for the short term but not for the long term so examples of manipulation are things like dropping the price having a pro promotion the pressure sell you know buy one get one free these are all mechanisms to get someone to buy but they don't do anything to help someone be loyal they just they just add they add uh the promise of bounty or the threat of punishment um inspiration is different it's it's it's making someone feel heard make someone feel good making somebody feel like they matter let me give you an example um uh so we've all had this experience back in the pre-covered days where you get done with a business trip early and you want to go home early right you can you can go home a day early so you pick up the phone you call the airline and you say hey my business just got done early i checked online and it seems that you do have a flight available the day before can i please get on that flight and the uh the customer service agent says um i'm sorry you have the wrong class of ticket i can't put you on that flight you say please i just i just i don't want to sit in the hotel room i want to go back to my family i know you have seats available please please can you put me i'll pay whatever change fees please can you just put me in my flight i'm exhausted i'm sorry sir i've explained it to you you have the wrong class of ticket there's nothing i can do right now let's change that to some a more empathetic customer focus standpoint hey i'm i'm done with my business trip early can i go home early i notice you have seats available can i get on that flight uh here's the problem sir you've got the run class a ticket so the computer won't let me do it let me see what i can do i want to get you i want to get you home hold on click click click click no that didn't work come on i'm going to try we're going to get you home we're going to get you on that flight hold on sir click click click click click click no that didn't work hold on sir let me just talk to my to my supervisor they may know something i don't know you hold for a second they come back sir i am so sorry i want to get you home to your family the computer just won't let me do it because of your class of ticket i am so sorry you know what no worries don't worry thank you so much for looking the same result and this is the problem which is for you we usually judge customer service like if i got what i want it's good customer service if i didn't get what i wanted bad customer service that's only half the that's only half the formula half the formula is how we make someone feel and does the customer service agent actually care about the human being on the other side of that phone and that goes for everything it's not just customer service but do we actually care about the person we're trying we claim to be serving we we call it customer service well the word serve is in there rather than take or selfish or explain or rationalize i work in customer rationalization that actually would be more accurate for most customer service departments um and so i think that idea of of treating people and seeing people as people um um and trying to and trying to help people live better lives i think i think we're seeing it and i think that's a very good thing not because i think there's some sort of renaissance now i think it's because we got lazy for a bunch of years and now we're having to go back to basics