egyii blog

Organisations are doing a lot these days to enhance the ‘customer experience’. They are training and motivating employees to engage their customers at a higher level; and they are putting in systems, processes and policies to make doing business easier and more enjoyable for their customers.

We at Egyii ask: how can our employees engage their customers so that they really ‘connect’ with them and leave them feeling great about the organisation?

What actually happens between the employee and the customer as they are interacting with each other makes one of the most lasting impressions. How a customer feels when she walks away from an interaction remains with her long after she has forgotten about the content.

 How can an employee create that customer connection that leaves them with such a great feeling?

First, the employee must be authentic.

This means he must be aware of his feelings when interacting with the customer. He must use this awareness to respond to his customer with his ‘truth’, the genuine emotion that he is experiencing.

Of course, if he is feeling irritated he does not show irritation, but he does acknowledge it himself and deal with it so that when he does respond to the customer the signals he sends are genuine. If he does not acknowledge his feelings he will communicate a ‘false’ persona to his customer which will be picked up, probably unconsciously. The result will be that the customer will leave with a slightly negative impression of the employee. There will certainly be no memorable customer experience.

This ongoing self-awareness on the part of the employee is crucial if the customer is not to feel that he is just ‘going through the motions’. Too many times customers experience employees as ’superficial’ and ‘insincere’ because they are just acting out and have no connection with their real selves.

Second, the employee must become aware of his customer’s emotions and connect with their ‘truth’.

Often a customer will communicate with a lot of words and gestures, most of which do not represent where they are really coming from.

If an employee wants his customer to feel truly understood, he must pay attention and find the words, gestures and emotion that tell him “I am here.” By acknowledging the customer’s real thoughts and feelings he creates a bridge between them that the customer appreciates. Finding the customer’s ‘truth’ requires paying close attention and using intuition to sense and interpret the signals they are sending.

Connecting with your customer, then, happens when the employee’s ‘truth’ and the customer’s ‘truth’ are in a dance with each other. When an employee taps into his real self and eliminates all the posturing and acting, then he begins to be authentic. And when he takes the trouble to really pay attention to his customer and discover their real self, then he connects and a great customer experience is enabled.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

How are the banks listening to the clients/customers today?

I have been reading blog articles by and speaking with some of the Forrester and Gartner (my former employer) analysts recently. Both companies are  research and analysis firms for the technology industry - and there is a lot of buzz around utilising technology to “listen” to the banking clients.

I am noticing two things:

The customer experience (or as we at Egyii call it “customer proficiency”) is the banks’ biggest concern.

How to address the voice of the customer?

Communities

As networks, the Internet and overall communications have evolved, the world’s voice has become global. And even though it has been global, communities have formed- both locally and globally.

Many of you are aware that traditionally communities have been formed and are a means of discussing issues and sharing ideas - as people in communities have a lot in common. The platforms could be through town hall meetings, mahjong games in HDB flats, tribe gatherings, Etc.

Today, communities can also be formed digitally and continue to be formed personally (face to face).

The Social Media Phenomenon

What is happening globally and locally? Digital communities are being formed using  social media.

Ning. Facebook. Twitter. Votigo. Linked In.

And it is just not youngsters or Gen Y.

The old folks (like me- Boomers) have the biggest, recent  uptake on Facebook.

And big and small companies are doing it , too.

So, what are companies doing to take advantage of the voice of the client today?  They are using social media to capture the voice and are making quick changes based on the clients’ immediate input and needs.  It is all very real time. A recent article in Advertising Age states “The Internet has made it easier than ever for consumers to get their opinions heard — and for marketers to listen.”

One example is Ford Motor. “Social media has helped Ford quickly achieve its goal of being a top social brand and has broken down the more conservative communications processes that were in place,” said Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford.

On a Local Level – Singapore

A recent report showed that Internet users in Singapore spent 50% of their time on social media (community) sites. Wow! How to capture their attention?

In Singapore, we are well connected and very savvy. We use communities (whether you realise it or not) to voice our opinions. Everyone is listening.

The Banking Environment

Are banking clients talking, forming communities?

You bet they are. On line and and personally (in places like kopitiams – local coffee shops, Etc). They are sharing the stories. The heartbreaks. The downfalls. The successes!

In banking, the trend to move digitally has been slow.

Because some banks are slow in the uptake of using technology to listen to the client, personal (face to face) communities or sessions can be formed to fill the gaps. Until they are” up to par” digitally, banks need more proactive events or sessions where the client is comfortable in expressing his opinion. One suggestion is a simple  face to face, one on one “community” with the client (make sure the client is comfortable). Nothing beats that.

But don’t wait to long. The clients want a digital community in banking. They want to voice their opinion. It will happen.

So, how will you build your bank’s community so that you can hear the real voice of your banking clients today? Banks need to be more sensitive to the voice of the client. If it is not done digitally, find some old world ways of doing it.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

It’s at times like these that I find re-visiting classic pieces of writing about performance and success worthwhile. Yesterday I took another look at Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, which included this item written in 1934:

“One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year (when there was no income tax and a person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was Charles Schwab. He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company in 1921, when Schwab was only thirty-eight years old.

Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than three thousand dollars a day, to Charles Schwab? Why? Because Schwab was a genius? No. Because he knew more about the manufacture of steel than other people? Nonsense. Charles Schwab told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew more about the manufacture of steel than he did.

Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his ability to deal with people.”

Fast track to 2008 and Joe Takash says in his book Results Through Relationships, “It doesn’t matter whether I’m called on to deal with dysfunctional teams, to coach a talented but flawed leader, to increase profit, or to improve productivity and morale; there is always a relationship issue. There may be other issues contributing to the problem, but relationships always play a large part in the cause of the problem… and its solution.”

I know that obtaining degrees and certificates helps to qualify you as an expert in a particular field. I also know that the way most businesses are organised, you are spending the vast majority of your time dealing with tasks such as emails, reports and research. Yes, knowing your business inside out and dealing with everything that lands on your desktop are critical. But isn’t this time of economic turbulence a great opportunity to step back and assess what areas need a laser-like focus to bring you career success and your company growth and profitability in the next few months and years?

The secret is relationships. Your ability to deal with people is now the critical success factor. In fact it always has been. And the only way to deal with people effectively and to get them to do anything, is simply to give them what they want. And what they want is, as John Dewey, one of America’s most profound philosophers said, “to have a feeling of importance”. I doesn’t matter what situation or task you apply this to – what will enable you to forge lasting relationships and influence people is to make them feel valued and recognised. And this, above all else, leads to results.

So let’s spend some time thinking about our people skills and how we are going to use them to achieve much more than we ever thought we were capable of.