Teamwork and Problem-Solving

Take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

The matter of how teams learn has been studied for decades, and nowhere does team problem-solving become more important than in customer service.

A customer is unhappy…often they don’t know exactly what’s wrong with a project or process, but they feel something’s not acceptable and they want the problem fixed. Or they’ve diagnosed the issue, pointed out the perceivable causes, and they want the problem fixed.

Setting aside team dysfunctions such as chronic distrust, finger-pointing, and extended grumbling, let’s consider the dynamics of a team that works well together.

Recognizing patterns. The team has solved complex problems before—in fact, it’s learned from those scenarios, and that knowledge has been faithfully stored in the team’s memory or some sort of company database.

Defined roles and quick responses. The team is so expert at problem-solving, everyone knows and does their part—often with a great deal of skill, so not a lot of time is wasted.

A history of team successes. This sort of team is often analyzed for the ingredients of their effectiveness, praised at association conferences, showered with professional rewards. Thus the team knows its knowledge is solid and unbeatable.

The video illustrates “intentional blindness”—made aware of one task, another facet of the picture was missed.

And therein lies the problem—or problems.

1. “You’re only as good as the problems you fix for us.” Service recovery is one of the few opportunities we get to show our customers what we can really do for them. If anything, customers expect a reputable team to fix problems more quickly and skillfully. Pressure’s on.

2. Misdiagnosis. The team is too quick to diagnose the problem (recognizing patterns) and arrive at a solution. Unfortunately, misdiagnosis is easy when time and money are running short, and customer displeasure is high.

3. Failure is a stranger. The team springs into action but when its efforts are not met with success, a great deal of time is wasted in dismay and growing frustration—“But this worked with the XYZ account…why didn’t it work now?”

Complacency may be the biggest disease in corporate life today, creating forms of “intentional blindness.” We often have to detach from not only the problem but also our usual problem-solving dynamics to fully perceive everything that’s happening in the picture. Next time your team is confounded by a problem, bear in mind—keeping your eyes on the ball may not be the only fix.

Please Specify the Rage of Your Choice

I’m not saying flight attendant Steve Slater isn’t a nice guy. When your mom’s terminally ill and you’ve been a well-respected employee in an industry that’s endured many declines since 9/11/01, and you routinely deal with customers who are rude, self-centered, and demanding…well, you’re bound to hit a snapping point.

The same week that Slater grabbed his beers and slid into folk-hero status, there was a news story about a woman in Toledo, Ohio, who pitched a tantrum at a fast-food drive-through window, punching the employee in the mouth before hurling a bottle through the window and driving away.

And you can Google “sideline rage” to get a complete listing of the parents who freaked out at their children’s sports events, attacking coaches, umpires, and other parents because they disagreed with a call. My home city of Atlanta measures 4.15 on the “road rage” Richter scale (with 5 being extreme rage) for having the most incidents, and of course we also have “workplace rage”—after all, what other nation originated the expression “going postal”?

So what’s my point? The air lines are still a branch of the hospitality business. Sports were intended to challenge our kids, and prepare them for healthy competition. Traffic can be infuriating, but it’s a fact of life for many cities; and work enables us to make money and have our lives and careers. And most Americans readily acknowledge that in a world filled with ethnic cleansing, starvation, poverty, and terrible natural disasters, we’re still the fat, educated, well-spoiled kids with the better schools and toys.

So…praise Mr. Slater as you will, but don’t emulate him. When it comes to customer service and your own mental health, cooler heads have to prevail. And if you’re finding it difficult to cool down, then you need to get help—from a sympathetic spouse, colleague, or manager, a professional therapist, a career coach, and/or a longer walk in the evenings. We have to be more strategic than merely pitching a fit.

Adventures in Cold Calling

I've decided the American workplace is increasingly impenetrable: Lawmakers fret our borders are too porous? Well, they should get corporate policymakers to re-engineer border patrol, because then even American citizens would have trouble gaining re-entry.

Assuming you access an organization that — commendably — doesn't use electronic greetings, what you get is that Darwinian holdout of a dying breed: the human receptionist. And, like the dodo, this animal does not understand it's already in God's waiting room.

Today's adventure went like this:

Me, the cold caller: "Hi, I'd like to speak with John CEO." (Name changed to protect blah blah blah).

Receptionist: "Who?"

Me: "John CEO."

Re: "What department's he in?"

Me: "Erm...he's your CEO."

Re: "Oh. OK. Hold on, let me check. Does he work in this building?"

Me: "If you're the corporate headquarters, I would assume so, yes."

(Muzak version of "I Wanna Know What Love Is")

Re: (returning) "OK, hon, I've done some research and it looks like Mr. CEO does work here, but he's out right now. Would you like to speak to one of his assistants?"

Me: (unstated: "I'll speak to Donald Trump if you've got him in fishnet tights")..."Sure. Who would I be speaking with?"

Re: "Hold on, let me check."

(Muzak: "Mandy"...life is cruel)

Re: (returning) "OK, hon, I'm switching you to Delphine Admin. She'll help you."

Me: "Thanks."

Re: "You have a nice (yawn) day."

Me: "Thanks."

Next: (voicemail) "Hello. This is Paul Backwater of the Employee Picnics department. I'm sorry I can't take your call right now, but...."

Me: (ringing again) "Ma'am? I was supposed to connect with your CEO's office but got your Picnics department instead. Can we try again for Delphine Admin?"

Re: "Who?!"

A Legendary Strategy: Celebrating Citizens of the World

Recently I posted something about the forces reshaping our customers’ worlds* and, to illustrate, let’s consider a consumer product that’s penetrated a global market and kept its brand alive on every front.

Think about Moleskines—“the legendary notebook”—now ubiquitous to nearly every bookstore and gift shop, and their online counterparts.

Moleskine offers a good durable product but it’s not the only black notebook on the market, yet it may be to blank books what Kleenex is to tissues.

Moleskine’s publisher Modo & Modo resurrected the black notebook with an internationally flavored mystique, but they didn’t restrict it to an elite. Instead they opened it up to the world so the notebooks can be used by anyone who enjoys keeping a well-bound pile of paper around. Consequently everyone could feel like an artist and adventurer. (Hey, Hemingway and Picasso used Moleskines! Maybe Indiana Jones had one too.)

Then, instead of getting tetchy over the way Moleskine owners altered the black covers with their own designs, they went on to celebrate how citizens of the world use the notebooks—featuring saturated, customer-submitted Moleskines on their web site, blogs, online galleries, and in traveling “Detour” exhibits that go from London across Europe to Tokyo. Life hackers and bloggers routinely show their pages online. Just search keyword “Moleskine” on Flickr and you’ll see how extensive it is.

Moleskine hit all four bull’s eyes: creating international pedigree and appeal, then opening it up to world markets (globalization); diversifying the product line to fit heterogeneous needs (demographics); not merely accepting but celebrating a rich customer base (complexity); and showcasing the unique ways a global village of customers are using the product (customization). Why is this so remarkable?

You could ask for “Moleskine” anywhere in the world and chances are very good the shopkeeper will know exactly what you mean.

* Why It's No Longer Your Daddy's Customer Service

Customer Labels

Customer. Client. Constituent. Donor. Stakeholder. Patient.

As much as labels tell us what is, they also tell us what isn’t—and therein lies the rub, especially in customer relations.

Plenty of organizations make this mistake: they’ll allocate best resources to serve important customers, at the same time forgetting the value of each and every customer. Taking it a step further, for many organizations, their suppliers and employees are also customers. (How often have I seen on consumer complaint web sites, “I may have to work for these bozos, but I’ll never spend my money on their products or services!”)

Here’s another fact of life: organizations who habitually deceive and mistreat their employees suffer the worst customer relations—because degraded, unhappy employees will, consciously or not, spread the misery around.

So what do you do?

First, get in the habit of treating everyone as a customer. Don’t differentiate: close the gap between customer and co-worker (or supplier). Hopefully this will mean a reduction in phony cordialities, and an increase in spreading a habit of trust and respect.

Second, expect to be surprised. Unfailingly, human beings manage to do better in life, so that delivery man coming through your service door may be working his way through school and could one day become a client.

It’s a matter of trust and treatment. Nobody does business with organizations for whom every transaction requires a leap of faith. Without trust, nothing of importance gets done.  And we may forget the things ever said to us, but we never forget the way we were treated.

Do Your Employees Know What to Do?

It’s easy to tell which organizations put a premium on customer service and on their employees by how the latter responds to conflict—particularly conflict with customers.

Case in point: Last week I was somewhat irked by a drive-through bank teller who interrupted my transactions to have a lengthy chat with a customer in another lane. I understood her intentions were good (be friendly), but her chat took up my time, and later I realized she’d made a large mistake in logging a deposit amount (to my disadvantage!). When I returned the next day to have the error fixed, I pointed out this behavior to the bank manager.

Today I drove through again, and the usually friendly teller was noticeably more frosty—which I found interesting.

A well-trained employee would’ve known: (1) not to personalize the complaint; and (2) said something along the lines of, “Good morning, Ms. Ke! Listen, I talked with my manager about last week’s mistake and wanted to thank you for catching it. I’m sorry you had to come back again, but I promise it won’t happen again.”

“Oh puh-lease,” you might say, “she’s human, she clearly has a right to be annoyed with you for complaining to her boss about her.”

Well, sure, but think about the messages being conveyed to the customer. By being curt, she comes off as petty, self-involved, and defensive. (Can such individuals be trusted with customer deposits?) If she’d tried option 2, she’d have radiated professionalism, warmth, and concern for the customer’s time.

I don’t like spending all my time in bank lines, so this individual had become a single point of contact for me where my bank is concerned—to me, she is the bank.

It could be a bank teller, a drycleaning clerk, a receptionist, or a parking booth attendant. When conflict comes up, do your employees know how to react so you don’t wind up alienating customers?

Right, Wrong, or Customer Service

One of the first mistakes most people make when responding to customer complaints is to get overly mired in determining right or wrong.

            “Of course,” you say, “that’s a no-brainer. The customer’s always right. Everybody knows that.”

            Unfortunately, not everyone does, because a great many customer grievances are not so cut and dry. How do you address a customer’s ire over your late delivery of a project when he himself was late getting essential information to you? How do you explain to her that her abrasive behaviors have been upsetting your staff?

            Here’s the key: Don’t think in terms of right or wrong. First, get inside the customer’s head to comprehend how they’re perceiving the problem. Usually you’ll find it has less to do with right or wrong, more to do with other issues that have cropped up to ruin their day—the customer may be feeling new stressors at work or need help doing some incidental face-saving.

            But don’t get into the trap of determining right or wrong: you’ll only earn your customer’s resentment. After all, who died and made you judge and jury?

Take the time to fully understand how your customer’s experiencing the stated problem, and you’ll be more than halfway there to solving it. Along the way, you may also gain crucial insights on your customer’s work environment.