Great post today (as usual) by Chris Brogan. In it he laments the “cog behavior” that can sneak up on each of us if we’re not careful.
Chris defines cog behvaior this way:
> School teaches us to be good factory workers. We are trained to memorize the facts that our systems want us to believe. We interview for jobs that seek simplified versions of our complexity to approach tasks that have often been boiled down to repetitive systems that can be measured.
Essentially, he’s saying we can easily be “cogs in the machine” if we’re not careful. Now, that’s not always a bad thing, obviously. Sometimes, the routine, regular, expected can be just fine. But, one example that Chris cites made think about what can happen in the name of good consumer experience but fail to live up to expectations. He said:
> It’s when people act like robots at the human interface level that it bugs me. I noticed that my local CVS drug store was suddenly very into using my name at the pharmacy. “Did you have any questions for the pharmacy, Mr. Brogan?” “Welcome back, Mr. Brogan.” That felt great until I saw a badge that said, “If we don’t say your name, we will give you $5.” Pop.
You can’t force a small town feel
Chris then goes on to discuss how how customer service is often banished to a cog position. That’s the part that stood out to me.
It seems that often when a company hears about someone doing something well (or right) in customer service they try to force that on everyone. Sure, you may have one great rep who uses a person’s name when they talk to them because it’s natural for them.
But, you see that work, so you want all of your reps to do the same thing…even if that’s not their natural personality. Now, I’m not saying that you should ignore it if an employee is rude, but you also have to let them bring some of themselves to the job if they’re going to be effective.
What is that company trying to do?
They’re trying to force a small town feel by making each customer feel special, like they’re known and recognized by the person they are dealing with.
That’s like small towns used to be. You’d go into a local store and people would know your name. They knew because they saw you all the time, probably got to know you and genuinely wanted to talk to you.
Can you manufacture that? Not really. You can fake it, but it’ll be pretty obvious. Especially if you make it obvious.
Don’t come out and say, “We really don’t care.”
The bigger issue that Chris raises is the fact that the way CVS handled the desire to manufacture that small town feel basically ended up saying, “We really don’t care about you.”
How?
Because rather than letting their employees interact, or even encouraging them to use the customer’s name more, they required it. Then, they told their customers that if the person representing their company didn’t care enough to engage with you, they would make it right by giving you five whole dollars.
They basically took their most important touchpoint – that interaction between their representative and a paying customer – and degraded it to be the equivalent of forgetting to give someone a receipt.
I think it’s great to have your employees to engage with customers more personably, but do it right.
Encourage them to engage.
Give them the freedom to truly engage with people. (Don’t say, “Sally, your call time is too long!”)
Make sure they understand why it’s important for them to engage.
Get out of their way and let them represent your company…that’s why you hired them.
Photo Credit: faceless b
