Customer service is dead

Customer Service is
Dead: Long Live the
Customer Experience
Anthony Molaro, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, St Catherine University
Thursday, October 16, 14

Customer Experience...
@infoactivist
#MNLib14

Customer What?
@infoactivist #MNLib14

Well We Do Know
What it Means

Customer experience is the sum of all
interactions a customer has with an
organization and its products over the
duration of the relationship. It can also
include the feelings that has a customer
towards the organization based on their
perceived beliefs about the organization.

It’s not transaction-based
but experience-based

A customer experience oriented
organization appeals to every sense
and emotion of the customer and it
does this by paying attention to
every detail

Customer Service vs.
Customer Experience
Customer Service Customer Experience
Who Department All
What Consume Participate
Where A point of contact Everywhere
When Single point in time Sum of all interactions
Why Problem oriented Feeling oriented
How Reactionary Proactive

History of Customer
Expectation
Customer)
Experience)
Customer)
Service)
Friendly)Staff)
Easily)Locatable)
Dependable)Product)

Revenue & Profit
Customer)
Experience)
Customer)
Service)
Friendly)Staff)
Easily)Locatable)
Dependable)Product)
Customer)Experience)
Customer)Service)
Friendly)Staff)
Easily)Locatable)
Dependable)
Product)

Customer
Experience

Why Should I Care?
• Beyond profit and revenue
• Loyalty
• Forgiveness

The Words Customer
Service Have Become
Cliche

What Does a
Customer Experience
Organization Look
Like?

If a customer service issue has
arisen more than once or
twice in the last year, its no
longer a customer service
issue but an organizational
failure

Culture

• Deliver WOW Through
Service
• Embrace and Drive Change
• Create Fun and a Little
Weirdness
• Be Adventurous, Creative and
Open-Minded
• Pursue Growth and Learning
• Build Open and Honest
Relationships with
Communication
• Build a Positive Team and
Family Spirit
• Do More with Less
• Be Passionate and
Determined
• Be Humble

Anticipatory

The Engineer on a
Ladder
• Suppose an engineer on a ladder at a hotel
sees a women with her hands full enter the
building...

Story

Humans naturally seek comfort and stability.
Without an inciting incident that disrupts their
comfort, they won’t enter into a story. They
have to get fired from their job or be forced to
sign up for a marathon. A ring has to be
purchased. A home has to be sold. The
character has to jump into the story, into the
discomfort and the fear, otherwise the story
will never happen.
-Robert McKee

You don’t know a story is happening to you
when you’re in it. You slide into the flow of it
like a current in the ocean; you look back at the
beach and can’t see the umbrella, and your
hotel is a quarter mile behind you.
-Donald Miller

• Story allows us to relate to patrons better
• Story pushes us to achieve important tasks
• Story provides meaning to our lives

Participatory Culture

Participatory Culture:
Patron to Patron

Patron to Library
• Provide lots of feedback loops
• Create multiple advisory boards
• Develop avenues for your patrons to talk
to you

Employee to Employee
• Don’t forget the staff
• Staff book club
• Staff potlucks
• Staff get togethers

Staff

Ordinary
• If you hire ordinary staff for ordinary work
then you will have an ordinary organization
with ordinary results

Nice & Passionate
• Interview questions
• Are you nice?
• What are you passionate about?

Fearless
• Apple hires:
• 10% for knowledge
• 90% personality
• 100% fearless

• Hire for core values
• Train for everything else

Rethink Roles and
Duties
• What if circulation clerks’ primary job was
not to check books in and out
• But was to greet everyone single patron
that entered the building because being
welcoming is part of your core values

Environment

Experience Audit
• IDEO and the hospital experience

Learning and Growth
Occur in Circles not
Rows

The
Apple
Way

Simplicity

Beautiful
https://www.apple.com/retail/galleries/lincolnpark/images/lincolnpark_gallery_image8.jpg

http://librarygraphicdesign.blogspot.com/2012/05/library-helps-you-find-your-way.html

Radical Trust
• Apple has an app that allows you to self-checkout
in their store
• 2% will steal, so why do we create a bad
experience for 98% of our customers
based on the 2%?

A.P.P.L.E.
• Approach customers with a personalized warm
welcome
• Probe politely to understand all the customer’s
needs
• Present a solution for the customer to take home
today
• Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns
• End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return

One of the best means of making a library popular is to mingle
freely with its users, and help them in every way. When this
policy is pursued for a series of years in any town, a very large
portion of the citizens receive answers to questions, and the
conviction spreads through the community that the library is an
institution of such beneficent influences that it can not be
dispensed with.
-Samuel Swett Green (1876).

• We should design experiences and solve
problems
• We often try to solve experiences and
design problems

• If patrons wanted quiet they’d likely stay
home
• But we also need to ensure that we have
quiet spaces too

Lighting Round: Quick
Tips for Today

Show Don’t Tell
• Never give verbal directions
• If you must give directions, write them
down
• Never point to a location
• Per Se restaurant guideline #20 “When
asked, guide guests to the bathroom instead
of pointing”

Phones
• Every patron phone call is precious, never
let an automated system upset your patron
experience

• Hand written note for every new patron
• Follow up with a birthday card (at least for
the kids)

Make Waiting Enjoyable

• Know your patron by name
• People want to be recognized

“Remember that a person’s name is to
that person the sweetest and most
important sound in any language.”
~Dale Carnegie

• Patrons long for a positive and personal
connection
• It may be the only time they experience a
connection all day

Once upon a time...

Even now, as adults, there’s something in most
of us that perks up and starts to listen when
we hear those words. We love stories. And
stories have always served important functions
for us. They bring us together and reinforce our
sense of community. They engage, amuse,
enthrall, and titillate. And they teach:
throughout history, before most people could
read and write, stories, told by firesides and in
village gatherings, were the mechanism by
which we handed down laws and values,
religions and taboos, knowledge and wisdom.
~Fast Company (November 15, 2012)

Thank You
Questions?

Customer service is dead

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