We recently hosted a dynamic and very refreshing webinar with customer service expert Jeanne Bliss. Jeanne is one of the foremost experts on customer-focused leadership and paved the way for the role of the Chief Customer Officer. She has held customer service executive roles at Lands’ End, Coldwell Banker, Allstate, Mazda, and Microsoft. Since 2002 she has initiated customer experience transformations for global organizations through her firm, CustomerBliss, and has inspired audiences throughout the country in her keynote speeches. The co-founder of the Customer Experience Professional’s Association, Jeanne has often been referred to as the “Godmother of Customer Experience.” She has authored several books on customer service. This webinar was inspired by her most recent publication “Would You Do That to Your Mother – The Make Mom Proud Standard for Customer Service” We highly recommend this book for anyone in a customer service role. The book brings to our attention this vital question:
How would your company act if every customer were your mom?
As Jeanne puts it, “How do we cut through the rigmarole of business to give customers the treatment they desire, and employees the ability to deliver it?” Jeanne Bliss recommends making business personal to get the traction you need by focusing on one deceptively simple question: “Would you do that to your mother?”
To quote from Chapter One of her book “Our collective decisions tell each customer a story about who we are, what we value, and about the role we choose to play in their lives.How we choose to correct something that goes wrong—how steadfast we are in delivering the goods, ensuring quality, and keeping our promises—tells customers about how much we think of them on the end of our decisions. And that’s what shows up on the internet. That’s what grows or gets in the way of our business growth. You hold the power to improve customers’ lives. To make a choice when you act, when you decide, when you choose to react or respond.
Simply pause and think: Would I do that to my mother?”
Filled with fun “Momisms” and real life case studies of companies who have implemented this common-sense, very practical service strategy, the book even has a tool, a “Make-Mom-Proud-O-Meter” which is a scale from very unhappy “Oh Dear” Mom to the delighted “So Proud of You!” Mom. The “Make-Mom-Proud-O-Meter is a great tool that can be used individually, part of a team meeting, or as a way to assess customer experience within your organization, to help determine areas for improvement with culture, processes, team empowerment, team member coaching, and overall customer focus.
Jeanne Bliss sums it up with these four guidelines which echo a mother’s guiding words:
- Be the Person I Raised You to Be – In other words, exemplify the good values you have been brought up with, even at the workplace
- Don’t Make Me Feed You Soap! – In other words, don’t let a customer’s dissatisfaction get to the point that they have to take negative action
- Put Others Before Yourself – In other words, always put the customer’s needs first
- Take the High Road – In other words, always do what is right, and always be professional when addressing any customer issues
Jeanne has shared some additional resources with the CSIA community, and we encourage you to take advantage of them:
Make-Mom-Proud website – where she’d love to have people post a pic of their mom and how they make her proud in business:
First chapters of all of her books:
http://www.customerbliss.com/books/download-the-first-chapters/
Gifts for buying the new book – Would You Do that To Your Mother?
http://www.customerbliss.com/books/would-you-do-that-to-your-mother/#offer
Jeanne’s Podcast show:
http://www.customerbliss.com/the-chief-customer-officer-human-duct-tape-show/
How Jeanne can help you get leverage with their C-Suite to lead this work!
http://www.customerbliss.com/work-with-me/unite-the-c-suite/
And a fun questionnaire: Stop the Shenanigans Quiz-Would You Do That To Your Mother you can use to assess your company’s customer satisfaction.
Now sit back and enjoy her great webinar, and we hope it inspires you to #makemomproud!
