The name has come to stand for a new standard of customer service, an awesome (I can use this as they are American) online shopping experience, a great place to work, and the most impressive transformational business success story of our time.

Their approach quite simply is “To make every day a WOW day for your customers, staff and bottom line”. Well this is what the copy on ‘The Zappos Experience’ book cover said. Excluding the word ‘awesome’ as I added that instead of amazing. Similar I figured.

It really is a phenomenally smart business and a fascinating book to read. Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO writes the foreword and explains that they have made a lot of mistakes along the way and part of the goals of the book was to help other companies make fewer mistakes. Their vision has evolved to helping other companies and organisations make their customers and employees happy as well as their own. Nice people.

Described as UNCONVENTIONAL you get the feeling very quickly that everything about the way they do business is singularly focused. They have one culture and that centres wholeheartedly on SERVICE.

After screening suitable job candidates based on cultural fit the culture at Zappos is constantly nurtured. This is done in three ways:

• Incorporating values into regular progress conversations
• Budgeting money for cultural activities
• Encouraging open expression of opinions about culture

Whether you buy in to the clearly American hyped energy around this business one thing is for sure. Both customers and employees love Zappos. It stands for everything good, even if occasionally things go bad, because everyone wants it to be good. Awesome!

Get in touch to give your business a touch of Zappos

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Whether effective, reactive or misguided the skills of a senior management team really do have a huge impact on the internal and external culture of an organisation. Especially in times of change.

Take Tesco – a change of management and the momentary opportunity to load everything that’s wrong about the business on the departing team and charge in with a white charger to listen and learn from those on the front line is a much played out scenario of any business under pressure to make dramatic changes and take serious action.

So what of the team in that situation?

Allegiances vanish and insecurity prevails as the new regime sets out their mantra and seeks to engage the potential employees of the future whilst being clear to encourage the old school thinkers to move on.

Cultures can fade and die in an instant. Careful management at a senior level is essential to steer the ship steady and set course for the new world.

Get in touch if you can see your ship is off course or there’s a cultural storm coming.

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The art of influencing people…persuasion, if you like, could take pages and pages to write and you’d still have to put it all into practise. So, I’ve focused on the understanding of what it really means to persuade and how to think about going about it.

Generally speaking people don’t set out to be ‘difficult’. Influences such as the behaviours of others, challenging tasks and business issues often make even the most easy -going of individuals challenging to deal with at times. Especially when you really would like to achieve something and you are hitting the proverbial ‘brick wall’.

Many books on Persuasion (and the one by James Borg is a good one) quote Aristotle as one of the earliest supporters of ‘getting people to do something they wouldn’t ordinarily do if you didn’t ask’.

What is consistent is that most of it comes down to:

EMPATHY + SINCERITY = PERSUASION

So what do empathy and sincerity have to do with it?

EMPATHY

When someone has true empathy with someone else they are on their wavelength and truly listening with their heart as well as their head. Many will call it ‘being in rapport’. It’s the ability to identify and understand the other person’s feelings, ideas and situations and it doesn’t mean you have to have experienced them yourself. It’s understanding and really listening to the other person and then assessing what may be coming next in their mind and their conversation.

SINCERITY

Marry that with the conveyance of trust to the other person by showing genuine sincerity that you actually care about their situation and the conversation takes on a different tone. The other person is more open to you and shares more, which in turn allows you to influence and direct the conversation according to your goals.

You may have heard the term ESP. Extra Sensory Perception. It’s really all about Empathy + Sincerity = Persuasion. You may also have heard the phrase ‘ emotional intelligence’ or been told that there is a lack of it in an individual’s approach!

It’s worth bearing in mind that the ability to show both empathy and sincerity will not in their own right unlock the door since people’s attitude also plays a big part.

Here are the things you really need to blend together in order to master your ‘persuasive’ approach:

1. Be a good listener
2. Be attentive and pay attention – really listen and watch and focus on the person 100%
3. Watch your body language – learn to mirror and match to build rapport
4. Make relevant notes – don’t rely on your memory to flatter with interest and recall
5. Tone, timing and telepathy – the 3 T’s. When conversing listen to their voice, pitch and the words they use and use them back to enhance rapport. Make your move at the right time and not when they are chasing their tails, and anticipate responses.

Most people don’t naturally have the power of persuasion but remember it is an ‘art’ so it can be learnt and should definitely be practised.  Be persuaded to grab for those new shoots.

Get in touch to learn more about how to improve your rapport building and persuasive skills.

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It got me thinking…. That’s actually not true! OK so the competition might be coming in different guises, rents can be crushing, and there may be increasing pressure on managing technologies at the same time as delivering service excellence….. However it is still about getting the right products into customers’ hands to meet their needs and to do that the number one never changing element is your people. Brilliantly engaged, knowledgeable and empowered People! So what’s new there?

You can’t cut corners with your people if you want a successful retail business. Simple. Technologies offer a dynamic, instant source of information, peer endorsement and can add credibility to a product….they can’t replace personal interaction and neither should they. Retailing is still ALL about people.

Now, more than ever, with so much choice customers are looking for help in deciding what to buy. Click and collect encourages them back into your store and its a lost retailer that doesn’t grab at that opportunity with both hands and allow what’s often their most expensive and always their most valuable resource to engage, advise and sell. Training and empowering individuals to resolve issues at the sharp face and turning that customer around is crucial whilst any back of house issues are fixed.

Customer complaints in retail may be at an all time high, that’s inexcusable. Things might be different in terms of the dynamics of retailing, faster, multi-dimensional, complex. People are still your greatest asset.

Get in touch if you want to focus on your people to drive success.

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If you’re in any doubt take the time to read this article from web based www.business2 community.com. It definitely gets you thinking about customer life……

With 2015 lurking just around the corner, it’s concerning to think just how much customer service and the customer experience are impacting the reputation and bottom lines of brands and organisations.

While satisfying customer experiences can have great results (increasing customer acquisition, retention, brand loyalty and advocacy), just a single poor customer experience can lead to the unexpected demise of even the longest customer relationship.

According to a recent Customers 2020 Report, by 2020 customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. Customers “will expect companies to know their individual needs and personalise the experience. Immediate resolution will not be fast enough as customers will expect companies to proactively address their current and future needs.”

With this prediction, brands and organisations should be a little concerned if they haven’t already planned for improvements in customer service and engagement heading into 2015.

Luckily there’s still a little bit of time….

Here are 13 startling statistics to encourage a bigger and better buy-in for customer service and customer–centric marketing initiatives:

1. Brands in the U.K. are currently losing nearly £15 billion annually due to poor customer service. ~Harris/ClickSoftware Survey
2. U.S. brands are losing approximately $41 billion each year due to poor customer service. ~NewVoiceMedia Study Related Resources from B2C
3. 65% of 1,000 consumers surveyed said they’ve cut ties with a brand over a single poor customer service experience. ~ 2014 Parature State of Multichannel Customer Service Survey
4. Only 14% of respondents in a 2014 survey of CMOs rated the customer-centricity of their organisation as high; and only 11% believe their customers would say the same. ~ 2014 CMO Council Mastering Adaptive Customer Engagements Report
5. 
More than two-thirds of 2,000 consumers who encountered a customer service/customer experience issue on a brand’s website left the site or visited a competitor. ~ 2014 IBM Digital Customer Experience Report
6. 71% of those who experience positive social care experience are likely to recommend that brand to others, compared to just 19 percent of customers that do not receive a response ~ NM Incite Social Care Survey
7. Companies delivering customer support through social media achieve superior gains – 7.5% vs. 2.9%.~ Aberdeen Group Social Customer Care Report
8. The revenue impact from a 10-percentage point improvement in a company’s customer experience score can translate into more than $1 billion. ~ Forrester Business Impact of Customer Experience
9. 58% of companies say they are just now developing a strategy for delivering an integrated customer experience; and only 8% of companies surveyed said they currently provide a ‘very integrated’ customer experience. ~Econsultancy/CACI Integrated Customer Experience Report.
10. 63% of online consumers said they were more likely to return to a website that offers live chat. ~ Forrester Making Proactive Chat Work
11. 75% of consumers think companies should make answers to all their common questions available via smartphones. ~ Synthetix; 62% of companies think mobile customer service is a competitive differentiator. ~ ICMI Mobile Customer Service Strategy Report
12. 40% of approximately 3,000 consumers in a global survey said they prefer self-service to human contact for their future contact with companies, and 70% expect a company website to include a self-service application. ~ The Real Self-Service Economy Report
13. By 2020, the customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. ~ Gartner Research

Source: www.business2community.com

Get in touch for advice on how to create and maximise your customer service and engagement programme.

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Here’s a snap shot:

PICTURE PERFECT SELFRIDGES

Hot on the heels of their summer ‘design your own Magnum ice cream’ zone, Selfridges have swapped ice cream for popcorn. In early September Selfridges launched the World’s first department store cinema in its iconic Oxford Street store. Teaming with an independent cinema group the cinema will screen classic and contemporary films as well as showing selective new releases in advance of the official launch date. A truly new reason to visit, the cinema is planned to be in situ until Spring 2015.

THE FUTURE’S BRIGHT FOR THE WHITE COMPANY

Norwich is the new home for The White Company’s debut, stunning, modern and revitalised shopping experience. Being dubbed an Apartment store it’s super striking, sleek frontage is brilliant white and provides real retail standout for their product ranges. Hi tech touches include strategically placed small white projectors to throw images and words on key merchandise. It’s a nice touch of new thinking in a town with a solid history.

A CONVENIENT COFFEE WITH HOUSE OF FRASER

Next month HoF customers will be able to pick up cashmeres with their cappuccinos as the retailer links up with Caffe Nero to create a new click and collect, experiential concept store in Cambridge. It’s all happening in the East. The ground floor will look and feel like a Caffe Nero style coffee shop with tablet devices for customers to shop online whilst enjoying a coffee. The first floor will be a HoF front of house with till points for customer collections, product displays, fitting rooms, terminals to buy and mannequins with beacon technology to personalise the customer experience further. It might be a time saver for some but is just as likely to be a meeting place too.

So how do retailers ensure these concepts stick and how much customer research has been undertaken to sense check that these ideas match with real customer demand? Time will tell. The exciting thing is that the High Street is re-energising…..

Get in touch, for some fresh ideas to invigorate your business.

Research: taken from Retail Week, press and Selfridges store

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I learnt many years ago that you can generally ‘find time’ for things you really want to do, it’s mustering up the will to ‘make time’ that takes the concentration. Never has that been more true than today with the continuous technological advances that seek to steal your time at every turn. TV’s, mobiles, internet… all promise instant access, speed and immediacy and yet they offer too the perfect opportunity to wile away hours of distracted time. Before you know it an hour has passed and you have a dozen tasks started but not finished.

In this age of frenetic activity the state of ‘mindfulness’ – thinking only of now, in the moment, is ever more attractive as we don’t just seek to improve our time management we are looking to manage our time differently. In fact forget time management it’s attention management that we really need. Yes! It’s time to put some control around our distractions.

How much time are we really losing because we didn’t pay attention the first time and are having to revisit things again?!

Resourcefulness can’t happen without a bit of breathing space either. Taking time to think, explore and even just breathe a little more slowly and deeply is certainly a start.

So here’s a great place to begin. Sit down clear your head and give this observation, by the much acclaimed, Eckhart Tolle, some quality time and attention…

“In today’s rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being” Eckhart Tolle

Need some help ‘making time’? Get in touch.

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I listened with interest to Andy Murray’s pre-championship interview. He was discussing how it would feel to be back at Wimbledon and the focus it would take going back on to Centre Court on Monday for the first time since his historic win. His response was “…..well yes, inevitably they’ll be a few nerves, but as soon as I get on the court ……it’s all about ‘trying’ to win”. An interesting choice of words because after all ‘trying to win’ isn’t really good enough is it? It suggests there is an option about winning or not. Mentally shouldn’t we be not just be ‘trying’ to do things well. Shouldn’t we be ‘going’ to do things well, exceptional even. No doubting ourselves, no room for maybes.

Take the England team lining up against Uruguay and Suarez. Who wanted to win that match more? From all the pre-match commentary Suarez was clearly on a mission. He single-mindedly focused on beating England determined to score and to win the match. He didn’t think he’d try and win the match he knew he would. No doubting, no room for perhaps.

How often in our working lives do we use the phrases ‘I’ll try and resolve this’, or ‘I hope to hear from you soon’, or ‘maybe we could do that’……. Try, Hope, Maybe, Perhaps – they are so often used but do they actually inspire you, or the user, to believe success is a given? It has to be all about commitment, focus, intent. In using these phrases are we really mentally planning to succeed or fail?

If you want to know more about how to plan for and achieve success get in touch.

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I’ve read many articles and gleaned fascinating information about this British institution and it’s got me thinking…….

Has your brand or organisation got the staying power to last the next 150 years? Have you instilled a strategy to secure your future way beyond the next three to five-year plan? What about your people, are they engaged and participating at the most contributory level possible?

If you haven’t taken time recently to step back from the day to day and considered the cultural and ethical elements that underpin your business it might be useful to consider some of the key attributes that reflect the John Lewis business model as your start point to reviewing the staying power of your organisation.

1)    STAFF EMPOWERMENT & OWNERSHIP

John Lewis has the unique structure whereby every employee is ‘a partner’ and owns the business. It is said to enhance many aspects of the corporate/employee relationship with reduced staff turnover, improved service levels and greater collaboration and productivity being just a few benefits. Other businesses have played with similar models to a lesser or greater degree and some with an element of success.

Certainly a shared annual profit bonus is just one way to start the journey and an internal set of criteria or ‘employee charter’ that is created by everyone in the business and becomes a code of conduct for doing business with each other can be highly motivational and a step towards consistency of approach.

2)    GREAT VALUE FOR MONEY

‘The never knowingly undersold’ pricing strategy has been running since 1925 and although it has been adapted more recently to take account of multi-channel and the growth of online, where price comparisons had become less clear, it is the clarity and honesty that this strategy delivers that makes this so powerful. It provides trust and assurance. John Lewis recognise that it’s about quality products at the right price and therefore great value for money becomes a far more important driver than regular discounting and price offers that only seek to confuse and create distrust with the consumer.

Are you offering your customers great value for money, consistently and across all your channels? Are you taking account of your competitors positioning and considering your business USP’s when setting your price points, fees or charges? Do you have a long term pricing strategy that isn’t just about short-term sales spikes and promotional complexity? Keeping it simple and sustainable secures customer understanding, trust and internal operational and communication sanity!

3)    CUSTOMER SERVICE

Exemplary service has helped JL maintain its hold at the forefront of retailing and as the customers’ favourite shopping haunt. This service quality extends to the heart of customer service itself where good service is provided through extensive training and the empowerment of staff to be able to take necessary immediate customer service decisions to resolve a ‘live’ issue; to the number of services that are offered to customers today including through online.

Zappos, the US shoe etailer possibly best exemplifies how customer service and thinking ‘as a customer’ can be used to define a strategy that underpins the business and becomes an integral part of the DNA and customer experience. Today offering great service starts with employing the right individuals and creating an empowered workforce who think customer centrically.

4)    OMNICHANNEL ENGAGEMENT

What has kept John Lewis successfully trading on the High Street is the impressive way that they have adapted to the cultural and technological changes required by the business and it’s customers. Early adopters of ecommerce, the development of Click & Collect and their newly launched JLab concept linking to smaller innovative technology companies indicate that they have their finger completely on the pulse.

How do you review your future technologies and do you have the in-house expertise to build your systems integration and keep competitive? What are the new trends affecting and driving your market segment and how quickly are you embracing these? What happens if you ignore them?

5)    EMOTIONAL CONNECTIVITY

Over the past few years the partnership has successfully created advertising campaigns that have engaged customers emotionally and created social media connectivity and buzz on a huge scale. Most recently this instigated spin off merchandise but it isn’t all just about selling product. With the strength of core drivers such as customer service, pricing transparency and brand heritage supporting these campaigns the emotional connection to John Lewis is haloed.

Consider your marketing, social media, PR and advertorial campaigns and what they really say about your brand, products and your approach to business. Are they about the direct promotion of a product or could they also say more about who you are too? Encouraging co-parenting in a brand is immediately connecting you to your customers.

6)    TRUST & CUSTOMER LOYALTY

John Lewis is the most trusted Brand and UK retailer according to analysts and it is the combination of honest pricing clarity, high and consistent customer service standards, reliable and good quality products, and it’s heritage that have helped them translate trust into customer loyalty. This hasn’t seen them rest on their laurels either with the recent introduction of my Waitrose and my John Lewis loyalty cards.

How can you instill this level of trust and in turn loyalty from your customers?  If you have considered the points above carefully to achieve a long term and sustainable purpose you are certainly on your way. Remember – everything matters and we can’t hide behind our logo!

Get in touch for more help and support in achieving a long-term set of guiding principles that work across your business and ensure some staying power of your own.

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