The Customer is (f**)King (stupid!)

Recently, I decided to buy hiking boots for my wife, as we were going on holiday to the mountains, and she had earlier said that she would like a new pair. I went to a local shoe shop, and asked for a pair in my wife's size. The lady behind the counter showed me the choices, and between us, we selected boots which I thought my wife would like, and which she thought were of good quality. I bought them, and noticed that the receipt stated that the shop did not offer refunds.
Later, my wife tried on the boots, and found that, not only were they too large, but there was a tear in the side of one of them. I went back to the shop, and explained the story to the lady. She said she was very sorry to hear about the problem, and looked for a pair without a tear, and in a smaller size. There were none. I explained that my wife had really liked the pattern, adn I was afraid of choosing a different pair. Without saying another word, she took the boots and receipt from me, and gave me back the money. She said that she was very sorry she couldn't give me the boots I had wanted, but that if I came back and tried later that month, she might have more of the same kind.
Before I went to the shop, I had expected to argue that the shop had no right to refuse refunds, and had prepared myself for the usual blank refusal from the shopkeeper. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shop assistant actually cared for me, and wanted me to be satisfied with my purchase. While she was busy cancelling the sale and finding the money, I looked at the selection of men's shoes available, and decided that the next pair I bought would be from there.
It's amazing, but people often forget about Customer Service when they talk about sales skills, yet the sales assistant's readiness to break the shop's regulations to make me happy meant that, although no sale was made, a sale (or sales) would be made in the future. In my company, we are always looking for ways to satisfy clients' needs, even before the clients themselves are aware of them. Once, a client sent us notification of termination of their contract. Our Client Manager immediately arranged a face-to-face meeting to discuss the reasons for their termination of the contract. During this meeting, it came out that, while they were more than happy with the service we provided, they felt thay could not afford it -we were too expensive, in other words. The end result was that they continued with a more economic, streamlined service, and as soon as their business picked up, they returned to their previous plan.
This can be put into contrast with a company which used to look after our internet marketing. We were very unhappy with their sales service, and with the fact that they only contacted us to remind us to pay invoices. We decided we wanted to renegotiate our contract (in effect, change the plan), but at the same time test how they saw us as a client. We sent them two months' notice of termination of the contract. A week later, we received a phone call from the company, warning us that we were making a big mistake, and reminding us that we would still get two more invoices. That was enough of an answer!
Your clients become your clients because they need your goods or services. But there are hundreds (or thousands) of competitors offering the same, so you have to make sure that your clients need you. I can buy boots from anyone, so I may as well buy boots from somebody I like. And I will like somebody if I think they understand me.
My advice is this: talk to your customers. Then, listen to them. They'll be surprised, and you will too.

People are People!

Occasionally, people ask me if I have any good advice for them to remember as they start a new job, or when they are about to meet and do business with a new culture. My favourite maxim is this deep philosophy: 'People are People'
When I say this, most people either just laugh and say 'Isn't that the title of a Depeche Mode song?', or they just laugh, and remind themselves to get advice elsewhere. What Iactually mean, of course, becomes clear when you think about what people are. In the film Men in Black, a character learns that there are aliens living on Earth, and that this fact is kept a secret from the public. He asks 'Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.' His colleague answers:
'A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. '
This is an entry to my way of thinking. To continue, we can say that people are, at various times, thoughtful, kind, random, surprising, cruel, highly intelligent, equally stupid, forgetful, absent-minded, creative, dull, blank, unoriginal, unprepared, efficient, assuming, etc. The list of character traits that people can have is as long as the list of people on the planet!
With this in mind, it is a wonder that we are able to communicate effectively with anyone at all. Fortunately, people are people (!), and it is in human nature to communicate, to connect, and to want to join together and interact. This, together with our tendency to make assumptions (e.g. when someone says "Can I have some coffee?" we assume they want us to give it to them in a cup with boiling water poured on it) makes human interaction possible.
So, remembering that people are people, we should really hope that they have all the virtues, but prepare for the eventuality of them having all the vices! If we communicate using simple language that is impossible to misunderstand, and continuously ensure that the listener comprehends, and accepts the message, then we achieve our goal. In order to communicate effectively, we sould never assume that the listener 'is on our wavelength'. To paraphrase, we should treat the listener as if they are children.
Of course, I don't mean we should condescend, or speak in a patronising tone of voice, but we must remember that people are people, and children are very easily distracted, and very quickly lose focus. It is also true for us, that our listener may be trying (successfully or not) to multitask, and read while we are speaking, or speak while they are reading what we wrote. We must be prepared for our listener to be interrupted, or to suddenly be forced to leave. We cannot rule out the possibility that the head of a multinational corpporation is also distracted from a conversation (although he probably won't be distracted by the ice-cream van coming round the corner!).
Happily, the opposite is true, too, and because peope, make assumtions, and suppositions, we don't have to worry too much about giving explanations exact enough that a computer will understand and follow. How often do we hear or say the welcome comforter 'I know what you mean'?
My advice, therefore, for effective communication is to think of people as people, to consider, but also to welcome the human element.

You've got the Wrong Guy!

Today, I was going through some old anecdotes from www.businessballs.com, and I came across this great example of how we are often forced into situations we are not prepared for, and also how people will often hear what they want to hear. If it wasn't for the BBC video and source, you might even think the story had been invented as an illustration of how little attention is paid to what people say.
To summarize, the BBC interviewed the wrong man as an expert, and both the interviewer and interviewee were able to bring the interview to a close without laughing or crying. I wouldn't be surprised if nobody at home noticed, either.

Here is the text from Businessballs:

"This is a true story. It concerned Guy Goma, a lovely cuddly business graduate from the Congo, who on 8th May 2006 attended the BBC building in West London for an interview for an IT job. At the same time, the BBC News 24 TV channel was expecting a Guy Kewney, editor of the website Newswireless.net for a live 10.30am studio interview about the Apple court case judgement. (Apple Corps, owned by surviving Beatles McCartney and Starr, lost their case against Apple Computers, in which they sought to prevent the Apple name being used in relation to iTunes music downloads.)

Due to failed communications, entirely the BBC's fault (both Guys were blameless in this), the BBC News 24 staff grabbed the wrong Guy (waiting in a different reception to Guy Kewney), who, being an unassuming, foreign and extremely polite fellow, dutifully took his place in the studio, and after declining make-up (really), was introduced on live TV to viewers as Guy Kewney, editor of the technology website 'Newswireless', and then asked three questions by the BBC News 24 business presenter Karen Bowerman about the Apple judgements and its implications for internet music downloading.

Meanwhile the real Guy Kewney sat and watched 'himself' on the monitor in the BBC reception. See the interview.

What's so utterly fascinating about this, is:

Guy Goma initially expresses surprise about the interview situation, but, largely due to his broken English and heavy French accent the interviewer interprets and leads Mr Goma's response to mean that he is surprised about the court judgement. If you listen carefully Guy Goma does actually mention his 'interview' in his first answer. See the transcript below. However the pressure of the situation is too great and he has little option other than to play out the role that the fates have created for him. He actually does quite well, given that he knows little about the subject. Subsequent media reports that Guy Goma was a taxi driver are false - he's a business graduate. He later attended his IT job interview but regrettably was unsuccessful. You can read what Guy Kewney thought of it all on his own blog at www.newswireless.net (there are several entries - read them all to see the full picture).

the wrong guy interview transcript

Karen Bowerman: ...Well, Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless.
[Camera switches to Guy Goma's face, portraying a mixture of shock, disbelief and impending disaster.]
KB: Hello, good morning to you.
Guy Goma: Good morning.
KB: Were you surprised by this verdict today?
GG: I am very surprised to see... this verdict, to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came they told me something else and I am coming. Got an interview... [another word, impossible to discern] .... a big surprise anyway.
KB: A big surprise, yes, yes. [seeming a little anxious]
GG: Exactly. [growing in confidence]
KB: With regard to the costs involved do you think now more people will be downloading online?
GG: Actually, if you go everywhere you are gonna see a lot of people downloading to internet and the website everything they want. But I think, is much better for development and to empower people what they want and to get on the easy way and so faster if they are looking for.
KB: This does really seem the way the music industry's progressing now, that people want to go onto the website and download music.
GG: Exactly. You can go everywhere on the cyber cafe and you can take [maybe 'check'?], you can go easy. It's going to be very easy way for everyone to get something to the internet.
KB: Thank you [actually sounds more like 'Thank Kewney' - as if Ms Bowerman was a little distracted, no wonder]. Thanks very much indeed.

Lessons from this:

• Good clear communications are essential when managing any sort of interview.
• Pressure situations can easily lead people (especially interviewees) to give false impressions, which are no help to anyone.
• The behaviours demonstrated in this incident illustrate the power of suggestion, and NLP, albeit used mostly inadvertently in this case; the point is that all communications involve a hell of a lot more than just words..
• The power of the media to interpret just about anything for their own journalistic purposes is bloody frightening."