You really should strive to be the Zappos of your industry. Seriously. Ever heard of Zappos? If not you should know that they’re an online shoe and clothing company. How is that relevant to the packaging industry or any industry that’s not online shoes and clothing?

Simple – Zappos understands that their business is not about shoes and clothing. If you’ve heard about them you probably know of their legendary customer service. But you know the most important thing at Zappos? You’d think it’s customer service. It’s not.

Culture is the most important thing. WITHOUT the right culture you don’t create a legendary customer service experience. WITH the right culture the service experience and all the other great stuff will naturally happen. If the culture is right you don’t need all the bureaucracy and process. You can’t game plan for every possible scenario. The right culture makes sure that when the unthinkable happens it’s dealt with the right way.

Easier said than done though, right? It’s actually fairly simple. Figure out what your core values are. What they really are. If it’s teamwork, positive attitude, simpler engineering designs, more complex engineering designs, whatever makes up your core set of values, that’s what you hire for. Figure out ways to make sure you and the person you are hiring see eye-to-eye on those points. And if you do hire someone and realize those core values aren’t there that’s what you fire for.

Hiring for skill set only can occasionally work, but only if they fit the culture. Hiring people who fit the culture keeps everyone wanting to come to work in the morning.

To be sure, having the right culture in place isn’t the most cost-effective thing. Zappos notoriously offers employees who go through training $2,000 to quit at the end of their orientation. Right there. On the spot. Take the cash and leave. Cost-effective? No. But it’s powerful stuff that makes the people who stay positive they’re making the right choice. We’ve all taken jobs we knew weren’t a good fit. Zappos works hard to make sure that never happens.

On the cost front as well Zappos recently had an issue with one of their web sites where pricing went awry for about 6 hours and all items were sold for no more than $49.95, even items that normally went for much more than that. Zappos took the blame, admitting the mistake was their fault and then, after fixing the problem, decided to honor all the purchases that took place. They took a loss of $1.6 million in those 6 hours because of the mistake. Deciding not to void the sales was probably not a hard decision either, because their culture says you do the right thing. It’s a radical example, for sure, but it speaks to the culture they have in place.

If you want to better understand what Zappos preaches about culture, carve out 20 minutes of your day to watch this video of Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, as he explains why he does what he does. It will open your eyes:

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It’s one thing to see a packaging machine on a trade show floor and quite another to visit the plant where the machine was designed and built. At a trade show you experience the machine. Within the manufacturing plant, you gain first hand knowledge of the spirit that went into the design and manufacture of that machine.

Telling details emerge on facility tours. Clean work areas and well maintained and organized hand tools indicate a craftsmanship mentality. Tour guides who highlight the quality of the materials used in the machines, low turnover of the manufacturing staff, and the longevity of the company’s machines indicate what’s important to them – the quality of the product. When the tour guide introduces technicians, says hello to staffers, or stops to ask a question about a particular machine, you know that the guide is no stranger to the shop floor.

A tour will show how the plant evolved over time and whether sound decisions were made in organizing workflow given the constraints of the physical layout. Signs of growth in the manufacturing area are a plus. A discussion of the design tools available to the design team and interaction with the design staff during the tour indicate an engineering focused company.

The plant tour and meeting the people behind the machine provides customers the opportunity to more completely understand the origin of the machine and the ability to project its ultimate performance. Companies that build long-lasting packaging machines promote an engineering culture and take pride in their quality products. These same high standards can be found in the service and support offered by the machine manufacturer.

When you acquire a packaging machine you acquire the manufacturer as a long-term partner. Before entering into that relationship, visit the place where the machine will be built. Experience for yourself the culture behind the machine.

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We’re starting a new segment here at ProCustomer.com where we’ll occasionally spotlight Pro Mach employees who have gone above and beyond in providing customer service and have been praised by a customer. For each spotlight we’ll do a quick Q&A format with 5 questions on customer service.

For our first “5 Questions” segment we’re featuring Beau Moreau, Lead Engineer at Allpax Products down in Covington, LA. Beau received some terrific praise from a pet food company Allpax recently did some work with:

I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the audit performed by Beau Moreau. It was very enlightening as I expected it would be. Beau is an extremely talented individual who displayed top notch professionalism during his visit. It was a pleasure working with him and he certainly is an employee Allpax can be proud of.

- Director of Operations
Major Pet Food Manufacturer

With that said, here’s 5 Questions with Beau Moreau:

1) Your personal philosophy of customer service in 5 words or less:
Solid support equals recurring business.

2) What can a customer do to give you the best chance to shine?
Set clear expectations. Prepare an agenda or list of items for any in-plant service work and distribute the list both to us (the vendor) and internally to their plant.

3) What’s the most “above and beyond” you feel like you’ve gone for a customer?
I frequently provide customers with 3D CAD work and preliminary engineering information to demonstrate an idea or plan to provide work. I find this visualization of conceptual work provides a better understanding between the customers and myself.

4) What new technologies are having a major impact on service and support?
Using Solidworks as the primary CAD platform for new engineering work. This has increased the fidelity of our engineering work and also allows us to provide drawings and 3D models to our potential customers. This real world depiction of 3D objects is much easier to understand than 2D line drawings.

5) What’s the biggest obstacle customers face for achieving maximum machine or line uptime?
Preventative maintenance.

Many thanks to Beau Moreau for taking time to answer these questions and congratulations to him on wowing our customers.

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A number of the equipment manufacturer service managers I speak with are frustrated by the fact they only talk with customers when they experience a problem.

These managers think that machine operators don’t receive enough initial or ongoing training to maintain proper adjustments that keep the machine in spec. They say that end users do not service the machine at recommended intervals which leads to downtime. Some customers, they say, have a tendency to buy cheap replacement parts that not only break more quickly than OEM components, but also cause additional machine wear. Service managers decry the fact that so many customers pass up the opportunity to keep the machines well maintained through preventive maintenance service contracts.

During the sales process

Sales personnel don’t like talking about service because it implies the machine they sell isn’t high quality. Many customers don’t want to hear about service contracts because of the extra cost. Equipment company service managers, uninvolved during the sales process, don’t have a chance to weigh in. Frankly, most may not have the data to back up the cost/benefit ratio of ongoing training and preventative maintenance service contracts.

I suggest that service managers and equipment sales personnel become preventative maintenance contract champions and proclaim at every opportunity the value of those contracts. This advocacy must be fact based in order to demonstrate the positive impacts proper maintenance and training can have on productivity and costs. That means thorough data collection and analysis. Accurate cost/benefit ratios must be integrated into this analysis.

Sales people, customers, and service personnel should come together at the beginning of the sales process in order to chart a course toward lowest-total-cost of ownership and highest uptime and product quality. Without this cooperation, service managers will talk with customers only when they have a problem.

Here’s the question: Do service and sales personnel adequately explain the value of preventative maintenance service contracts?

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When we embarked on creating ProCustomer, we had a lot of learning to do to get up to speed on truly understanding and documenting what it takes to offer superior customer service. We had a general idea that we were offering great customer service, but we never really deconstructed it to understand how we did it. Along the way we made some key findings in our “discovery phase” we thought would be worthwhile to share with you.

The Most Important Lesson

Starting right from the beginning we kept rediscovering something we intellectually knew but that really didn’t sink in fully until we really thought long and hard about it:

• WE control customer service

As a company, we control it. There’s not a lot you can say you control as a company. The economy is out of your control, the weather is out of your control, what your competitors do is out of your control, your vendors getting you the correct parts is out of your control, your customers paying you on time is out of your control, foreign exchange rates are out of your control, etc. But you own your customer service experience and have all the power to make it great. That’s really powerful stuff.

Defining Superior Customer Service

Next, we needed to really hone in on what we wanted to offer. We knew we wanted to offer superior customer service, but what did that really mean? So we attempted to define it in the simplest of terms:

• Superior Customer Service – A positive experience for customers that is consistently delivered so well they have no reason to switch to a competitor

At the end of the day this is what we were striving for – to create great customer service experiences with our customers every time we interacted with them that made it hard for them to consider another company. That should be the goal of every business.

Customer Service Facts

Next we found a few key facts that really made it painfully obvious why we needed to focus on customer service:

• 65% of customer defections are controllable
• 45% of customer defections are service related

These statistics were really powerful. Nearly half of customer defections are due to service, something we control! We started to realize that the customer experience had be our top priority and reflected in our work processes, structure and systems. Everything we do had to be focused on making the customer experience great.

3 Groups of Customers

Next we found some information on classifying customers that really stuck with us. Essentially customers can fall into one of three categories:

• Advocates
• Apathetics
• Assassins

Our goal, as a company, is to have as many advocates as possible. Most customers fall into the Apathetics group where they’re satisfied, but not delighted. Assassins can bring us down and will tell other people about it. If we have a customer that’s an Assassin then we’ve probably given them several bad customer service experiences. Thinking about your individual customers and trying to identify which group they fall into is an eye-opening exercise.

The Customer Satisfaction Curve

The next thing that really opened our eyes was understanding the customer satisfaction curve – shown below. Understanding that in between the extreme cases of Assassins (on the lower left) and Advocates (on the upper right) were over 90% of our customers (Apathetics) was pretty powerful, as was the realization that it takes A LOT to move a customer from an Apathetic to an Advocate:

(Source: Corporate Executive Board, Climbing the Service Curve, 2003)

Creating Superior Customer Service

Now the last step was creating superior customer service. While our ProCustomer Attributes are well-documented, we didn’t start with those and instead had to focus on high-level points first before we could really get down to the tactical level. With that understanding here’s what we identified as the critical points to deliver a truly superior customer service:

• It had to be unique to our core strengths
• It had to have complete organizational support and active participation
• It had to revolve around profitable product and service offerings
• It had to be consistent – communication, behaviors, products and service
• It had to emphasize continual relationship building – both internal and external
• It had to begin with an understanding of both our customers’ and our own business’ requirements for success
• It had to focus on constantly communicating those requirements to both our team and our customers

So that’s how we got started on ProCustomer. There were a lot of other steps in the process and a lot that came after this, but these were our early lessons that still ring true. We hope you enjoyed this peek into our discovery process.

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I think we tend to forget that the most critical element in creating a great customer service experience is giving your people the power to make a great customer service experience.

Read it again this way: if you don’t give your people the power to create awesome customer service experiences they can’t create awesome customer service experiences.

I was at Starbucks this morning, ordering my usual chai tea latte, and I decided to try one of their english muffin breakfast sandwiches. We rang it up and I promptly moved to the other counter where they deliver your order. My tea came out and I took a seat to get out of everyone’s way, figuring my sandwich would take a little longer. A chance for me to check email and relax for a minute. After about 5 minutes I realized the sandwich probably wasn’t coming so I mentioned it to them. They apologized and quickly went about making it and then proceeded to hand me a coupon for a free beverage. It reads:

A cup should never be half empty.
We apologize if your Starbucks experience was anything but wonderful. We want to know how we can make things better and always invite you to share your thoughts with us. The next time we see you, please enjoy a beverage, on us. We hope your next visit is better.

On the back there’s a Customer Relations phone number and web site.

I wasn’t upset about the muffin, Starbucks is very busy in the morning and it’s understandable. But they have empowered their employees to make the decision on when to do the right thing. There wasn’t a manager that had to approve this, as far as I could tell. They just handed me a coupon that will cost them about $4 the next time I visit the store.

Do your policies sometimes get in the way of letting your customers have the best experience they can? Have you empowered your customer facing people to “do the right thing” at all times, letting their discretion and understanding of each unique situation dictate how it’s handled? Do they need to get a lot of levels of approval while the customer seethes? Think about what you can do to break down those barriers and you’ll create more opportunities for truly great customer service experiences with your business.

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Three years ago I interviewed the operations and quality manager at the nation’s oldest continuously operating brewery for an article I was writing on robotics for Packaging World magazine. The brewery used robots to automate de-palletizing and palletizing heavy beer kegs entering and leaving the plant. I asked about service from the robotics company and the manager answered, “We’ve received world-class responsiveness in terms of support from the robotics supplier. That level of support ensures that we don’t miss a beat in terms of overall production.”

That quote has stuck with me, because whenever I need support it’s the companies that are available and responsive that I value most. Not too long ago my automated computer back up system stopped working. I went to the supplier’s website and had to scroll through page after page until I found the tech service telephone number. Actually, I finally found it on the parent company’s website. And the support effort went downhill from there. The techs were great to work with, but the problem dragged on because, of all things, the tech’s work shift hardly overlapped my workday leaving a tiny window of opportunity to develop a fix.

The problem was eventually resolved, but when another problem occurred with the same system, I dumped the provider. I did not have the time or patience to work with that company. Besides, I dreaded having to invest the time to find that phone number again.

At a minimum, this is what I look for in terms of a responsive service organization:

• A phone number that is easy to find on the website or attached to the product or documentation.
• If I have to email the supplier, I want the company to acknowledge my email and quickly let me how long I’ll have to wait for a reply.
• When I call, I want to be put through to a support person quickly and with as short a phone message tree as possible.
• I want support hours that correspond to my work day.
• I want the tech support person to share my sense of urgency, to be knowledgeable, and to get a fix rolling ASAP.
• I want to work with a tech support organization that is creative and empowered to provide an out-of-the-box solution if necessary.

When a supplier sells a product to my business, that company implicitly becomes my partner in productivity. Some companies get that, while others don’t. It’s the ones who get it that earn my loyalty and gain the benefit of my endorsement when others ask me for supplier recommendations.

Here’s the question: Is responsiveness the number one thing you value in service and support organizations? Vote yes or no. I welcome your comments.

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Stick with me here, because I’m going to be talking about baby monitors. But I promise I’ll use the example to make a point.

Before we had our first child we researched a lot of different baby monitors before settling in on a system that was a bit pricey – $125 – but got great reviews. We’ve had the system now for over a year and really love it, it has a sensitivity adjustment on it that means we can actually hear the baby breathe if we want (how comforting is THAT in the middle of the night for the new parent?), but it only came with one charger base and you couldn’t buy an extra charger for it at the store.

So I decided to call the company and order an extra charger. I called them up and we walked through the model and part identification process, confirmed the part I needed and she took my shipping information. I realized she had yet to mention price so I asked her how much it cost and started to pull out the credit card, already conceding that “I’ve made it this far so I guess I’ll pay whatever it is.” I’m thinking maybe $20 or $30, tops. She then proceeded to tell me “It’s free – we do this as a service for our customers.”

“I’m sorry. What? It’s free?”

“Yes sir, it’s free as a courtesy to our customers.” Wow. I actually told her “I’m stunned.” She says “It will be there in 5 to 7 business days unless you need it sooner.” I assured her 5 to 7 was fine, thanked her profusely and then called my wife to tell her the good news. A purely delightful customer service experience.

Now I’m sure many of you are reading this saying “they left a lot of money on the table there – aftermarket parts can have a really big markup!” and you’re right – they did leave money on the table with ME. But customer service goes beyond the single customer you interact with – and that’s the key. People who have babies probably have friends who will be having babies and guess who those friends will ask about what the best this and that is?

Do you think any friend of ours won’t get this monitor recommended to them if they ask? Heck they’ll get it recommended to them if they don’t ask. Why? Because I got a free charger? No, it goes way beyond that – they decided that rather than make a nice profit from aftermarket parts, like we’re all want to do – that they would instead focus on creating loyal customers. They empathize with their target market – new parents – and try to make life a little bit easier for them, because they know that their lives are probably a little hectic right now.

Of course, they had a quality product to begin with and that’s important, but remember I wasn’t looking to change, I was already happy. They took a happy customer and turned me into a delighted customer.

Now how do we turn this back to packaging? Simple – remember that you don’t turn customers into advocates when they’re upset, you turn them into advocates when they’re already happy. You turn them into advocates by empathizing with them and occasionally surprising them by going above and beyond even when you aren’t asked to do so.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you need to give away spare parts to create advocates, but the heart of what I’m getting at is this: what could you be doing differently to unexpectedly delight your customers? How do you create your next “above and beyond” moment? How do you turn your apathetic customer into an advocate? Give it some thought, it might not be as hard as you think.

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The Remarkable Communication Blog has a fantastic article on 50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew – every point is written from a customer’s perspective, which is a viewpoint we could all stand to take more often.

Some of our favorites include:

• Telling me what you don’t know makes me trust you.
• You don’t need to do all that much to be a superhero. Just do exactly what you say you will do.
• I want to tell you what would make this relationship better for me. Why don’t you ever ask me?
• I want you to do the hard work for me. Even better if I can get all the credit.
• I have the attention span of a goldfish. Go too long without contacting me and I’ll simply forget you exist.

When we started trying to figure out how to promote and market ProCustomer internally to our own divisions (to the very people responsible for making ProCustomer a success with our customers) we struggled with what message to tell them. We could put together a nice long 28 page letter listing out all the attributes we wanted to excel at and remind them that was what ProCustomer was about, but at the end of the day how effective would that really be? Another memo stuffed in a drawer.

What we decided to do was much simpler – 6 words. It reads:

Be Easy To Do Business With

If you frame every interaction with a customer with those words, you start to get a pretty clear picture about how you should act and what you should do. The rest should take care of itself.

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In 1983, on his second day on the job, the new CEO of a company gathered his people and said:

“Tomorrow when you come to work, you do not work for me or for a boss. You work for your customer. I don’t pay you. They do. Every customer has its own factory now. You do what is needed for the customer.”

And just like that FAVI, an auto parts supplier in France, went from a centralized organization to a flat organization.

The paradigm shift worked. Accountability is to the customer and to the team, so people are free to innovate and solve problems for customers. Read the entire article on FAVI over at the American Express Open Forum.

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