The Amazement Revolution Read online

  Congruence in an exchange with another person is an extremely powerful force that can turn around even the most challenging situation. The absence of congruence, on the other hand, signals inconsistency and opportunism and can do long-term damage to almost any relationship.

  Congruence is what we all expect of, and sometimes actually get from, the people we rely on in life. Congruence is also a way of doing business. It’s what truly great service organizations consistently deliver, whether or not there’s a consumer problem to be resolved at any given moment. A lot of people mistakenly believe that the best service organizations have found some magic formula for eliminating problems altogether. That’s nonsense. What these organizations have found, however, is the formula for responding to problems, whenever they arise, with full congruence.

  And guess what? It works. The reason it works is that congruence, when combined with genuine empathy, is something consumers absolutely love to experience. They expect it from everyone, at every level of the organization, and when they get it, they look for reasons to stick around. When they don’t, they look for reasons to leave. It’s that simple.

  Congruence is an institutional value first and foremost. Its presence or absence at all levels of the workplace—from the most senior employee to the newest hire—depends on the degree to which it has been modeled and supported by our leaders. The American Express world service leadership team’s relentless emphasis on providing premium level service to all those who rely on the company wouldn’t mean much if they didn’t actually provide premium service to their own team, or if they didn’t hold themselves accountable to the standard of actually winning the hearts and minds of cardmembers and merchants. They do.

  If you want your employees to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, in their interactions with consumers, you must first walk the walk in your own interactions with the team.

  I asked Bush how he measured individual and organizational progress toward the goal of “winning the hearts and minds” of consumers. The intensity and animation of his response instantly signaled to me that this was a topic near and dear to him. He offered me the powerful example of changes in the productivity metrics system at American Express, evidence of the service principle I call walk the walk.

  “When you look at how we used to measure success historically,” Bush recalled, “what you see is that we had a whole list of metrics that we used to track. We tracked how much time people spent on the phone, of course, but then we also had internal quality monitoring, which was much more subjective. We had checklists to evaluate whether the call was good or not, whether the engagement was good, and so on. The problem was, no two people would necessarily agree on what engagement was or what a good call was. Those metrics had nothing to do with customer feedback. So we said, let’s eliminate that.

  “We removed the subjectivity from our call evaluation system,” Bush continued, “which meant we freed up the resources we’d been using to grade the calls. We then invested more heavily in our external surveys of customers, which we had been doing for a long time, but as a result of this decision to change the way we measured the success of a given call, we decided to generate the sample size necessary and the infrastructure necessary to extend the survey results all the way down to an individual customer care professional on the front line. That new measurement process asked one simple question: Would you recommend American Express to a friend?”

  A side note: This now-famous survey query, which was developed by Fred Reichheld, is sometimes referred to as the Ultimate Question. Whatever you call it, though, the answers it generates tell you exactly how well the individual customer care professional is doing. By extension, that question also tells you exactly how well the department as a whole is doing. And that’s not all: It also tells you exactly how well the manager of the department is doing! Once the manager publicly accepts accountability for the same standard he or she expects the team to meet, the whole dynamic of the workplace changes. People have something to model. What was once a congruence vacuum becomes a congruence zone!

  “Now we are all, from me all the way across the world service organization, measured on the voice of the customer,” Bush concluded. “We’ve made sure everyone’s compensation, including mine, incorporates the driver of customer feedback. We apply the same principle up and down the line. That’s a very important overriding objective in terms of driving outcomes.”

  Can you see where this is going?

  The answer to the question “Would you recommend American Express to a friend?” ultimately tells you exactly how well Jim Bush and the entire world-service management team is doing! And don’t think the people working on the front line don’t notice the management team’s willingness to embrace that standard. They do. They know the people they report to don’t just talk the talk…they walk the walk.

  How can you model congruence to the members of your team so they in turn can deliver congruence to your customers?

  ! ART #23: Model congruence with the right customer-focused values at all times.

  ! ART #24: Start a congruence movement within your organization. Everyone should walk the walk!

  ! ART #25: Identify customer feedback that’s both objective and measurable that everyone in your organization, regardless of rank, can use as a benchmark.

  ! ART #26: Consider tying compensation to Fred Reichheld’s Ultimate Question: “On a scale of one to ten, what is the likelihood that you would recommend us to a friend or associate?”

  Now that you’ve seen one company that models all seven of the Amazement Strategies, both internally and externally, you’re ready to look at some additional examples of organizations that have built one or more of these seven ideas into their mission. We’ll take a look at them next, focusing on one Amazement Strategy at a time.

  PART THREE

  ROLE MODELS FOR AMAZEMENT

  CHAPTER FOUR

  STRATEGY #1:

  PROVIDE MEMBERSHIP

  Organizations that operate within the cult of amazement turn customers into evangelists by thinking of them as people with special status—as members.

  Like many other world-class service organizations I’ve had the honor of working with, American Express launched its Amazement Revolution by thinking of customers in a whole new way. That was the essential first step. The result was a complete redefinition of the customer experience as a membership experience.

  I’m not saying you have to use the word “member” or start a “membership program”—but I am asking you to start thinking of customers and other critical stakeholders as members, as people who have achieved special status by virtue of their decision to work with you. All of your customers are partners in your mission. The concept of membership, whether it is applied to a guest, a patient, or any other recipient of your service, must be central to your organization’s customer service strategy, regardless of what you decide to call your customers.

  The membership experience has nothing to do with calling your customers “members.” As long as you deliver your organization’s unique membership experience, you can call you customers just about anything you want, assuming they like it!

  If you were to look at the people who buy from your enterprise, not as customers, but as members with elite status, how would you treat them differently? What would change in your organization’s processes? In its communications, both internal and external? In its follow-through?

  START WITH RECOGNITION, THEN ADD VALUE

  Amazement Revolutionary: Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

  Enterprise Focus: Luxury hotel and resort chain.

  Headquarters Location: Toronto, Ontario

  Website: www.fourseasons.com

  What You Need to Know: The first Four Seasons luxury hotel opened in London in 1970. Prior to that, the luxury theme had not been part of the Four Seasons brand, and the company was known primarily as a motel chain. In the years since that opening, however, the company has overseen more than eighty openings worldwi
de, and the properties it runs have been rated by sources such as Zagat and Travel and Leisure magazine as among the world’s most elite upscale hotels, delivering a level of service that is unsurpassed. The chain has been named one of Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For every year since 1998, when the list debuted.

  I begin this section on membership with the remarkable example of the Four Seasons global family of luxury hotels. This premier service organization opens this part of the book for one simple reason: they create a membership experience within the first sixty seconds of a guest’s check-in discussion more effectively than many of their competitors in the hospitality industry do over the course of a month-long stay. The Four Seasons staff gives their guests an instant feeling of inclusion, making them feel welcomed and special.

  The membership experience is what happens when you consciously execute steps that consistently deliver to your customers a powerful, internalized sense of belonging, of having arrived at a “home away from home,” of being in good hands. Identifying and delivering those steps is a fine art, and the processes that will deliver your enterprise’s membership experience are likely to be quite different from those of any other enterprise. The steps you follow will, however, always deliver two deceptively simple-sounding principles: recognition and unique value. Those are the twin pillars of the membership experience.

  Regardless of whether you call your customer a customer,

  client, guest, or use some other phrase, membership delivers recognition and a high level of value that is not

  easily available elsewhere.

  An excellent example of a service experience that takes full advantage of both these pillars is the carefully designed guest-welcoming procedure used at the Four Seasons hotel chain. This process consistently creates a Moment of Magic within an engagement opportunity that some hotels (including some luxury hotels) manage to turn into a Moment of Misery: the first few moments of check-in. I travel a great deal, so I can tell you from personal experience that the check-in procedures business travelers endure can often send all the wrong messages: I’m not here. I don’t see you. Wait until I get off the phone. I’m too busy right now to look you in the eye. My time is valuable. Or even I wish I were doing something else.

  The people who greet you when you check into a Four Seasons hotel never send you those kinds of messages, either verbally or nonverbally. Hiring the right people, however, is only half the reason the Four Seasons consistently gets check-in right. The other half of the equation is the process it trains its people to follow when engaging with a guest at the front desk. Let’s take a look at that process now.

  Here are the requirements an employee at the front desk of a Four Seasons hotel is trained to meet when checking in a guest:

  The receptionist will actively greet guests, smile, make eye contact, and speak clearly in a friendly manner.

  The receptionist will create a sense of recognition for each guest by using the guest’s name in a natural manner and by offering a “welcome back” to return guests.

  The registration process will be completed within four minutes, including queuing time.1

  Think of the last time you checked in to a hotel. Did the person who was serving you at the front desk meet these standards? Probably not. In fact, you may have felt just as anonymous after you had checked in as you did before!

  The people at Four Seasons recognize that’s what usually happens to us when we travel: we’re treated anonymously. This “default setting” of feeling anonymous and unrecognized, which is the first and biggest obstacle to any membership experience, is exactly what the personalization of the Four Seasons check-in is designed to overcome. It starts with the receptionist’s use of the person’s name, authentically and sincerely, not robotically. In fact, Four Seasons uses a “three-R” mnemonic to help its team make the right kind of connections with guests, time after time: Recognition, Reassurance, and Respect.

  Calling guests by their name in a friendly way (“Good morning, Ms. Jones”) is an integral component of the overall membership experience delivered throughout a guest’s stay at a Four Seasons hotel. The check-in process establishes that high level of service for the guest, and it also establishes the happy expectation that it will be maintained. It is maintained, more often than not. That’s amazement!

  Look how carefully, and how wisely, the Four Seasons check-in process has crafted the recognition component of this critical greeting and welcoming process for the receptionist. A less experienced service company might have scripted out the number of times the guest’s name was supposed to be repeated, and might also have scripted the words the receptionist was always supposed to say before and after the guest’s name. Scripts, however, carry two big problems: they handcuff service people and leave them with no room to improvise, and they almost always sound insincere when delivered. The receptionist is given the autonomy to use his or own words to “actively greet” the guests and use the guest’s name in a natural way.

  I told you there are two pillars of the membership experience, recognition and value not easily attained elsewhere. Now that I’ve pointed it out, you can easily spot the recognition element. What about the high value? Is that actually being delivered during check-in?

  It is. The people at Four Seasons have done decades of careful research on what people in their target market of wealthy business travelers value most highly. Can you guess what that commodity is? Here’s a hint: It’s not expensive wallpaper or fancy silver trays or pleasant background music or any other external aspect of the stay at the hotel.

  It’s time. These wealthy travelers consistently report to researchers that they are working harder and longer hours than ever before, that they experience serious stress in their lives because of the lack of available time to do everything they want to do, and that they flat-out resent being kept waiting. The Four Seasons does not keep them waiting, at check-in or anywhere else.

  Look carefully at the requirements of the Four Seasons check-in experience, and you’ll see that it is, above all, a message to guests that they have entered a special space where their time, whether it is to be used for work or leisure, is always regarded as a critical resource. The guest’s time will always be respected. You don’t have to waste time making an effort to catch the receptionist’s eye; the receptionist actively greets you. That seemingly minor detail actually sends a whole series of very important unspoken signals: I am here. I see you. You are the most important priority for me right now, and I am not putting any other task in front of the task of serving you.

  By sending these time-sensitive signals, and by completing the check-in process within that four-minute window, the receptionist is establishing a high level of service for the guest and setting the positive expectation that that standard will be maintained throughout the guest’s stay.

  Would it surprise you to learn that the Four Seasons always maintains a policy of 24/7 in-room dining? That its gift shops operate on special extended hours for the convenience of its guests? That it offers guests four-hour turnaround on dry cleaning? That these and similar amenities are all part of the hotel’s long-term strategy for delivering value to its wealthy target market?

  As Isadore Sharp, chairman and CEO of the chain, put it recently: “It became clear that the greatest luxury for our customer(s) was time, and service could help them make the most of that.” That’s a huge part of the value Four Seasons guests receive during every stay, and that stands out. These days, that level of respect for one’s time is rare!

  When you create processes that deliver personalized recognition to your customers, and you couple that with enhanced value that is difficult for your customers to obtain elsewhere, you create a special environment, a new world that your customers value, remember, identify with on a deep level, and want to return to. You create membership.

  How can you deliver a sense of recognition and value that sets you apart from your competition?

  ! ART #27: Build processes that mak
e your customers feel special by giving them recognition, reassurance, and respect.

  ! ART #28: Find out what your customers value most and find hard to get (such as time in the Four Seasons example). Build value-added “membership” offerings around that.

  JOIN THE CLUB

  Amazement Revolutionary: REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.)

  Enterprise Focus: Outdoor gear and sporting goods retailer

  Headquarters Location: Kent, WA

  Website: www.rei.com

  What You Need to Know: Founded in 1938, REI now has nearly 4 million members. The firm operates more than 100 retail outlets in twenty-seven states and opens four to six new stores each year. The firm employs over 9,000 people.

  Hiking and sports apparel giant REI has over 10 million paid members—but it’s happy to serve you even if you’re not one of them. The privately held consumers’ cooperative REI offers its own twist on the “membership has its privileges” concept by offering an accessible, consumer-friendly two-track service strategy. It sells outdoor recreation gear, sporting goods, and clothes to both members and nonmembers via catalogs, the Internet, and retail outlets.