Customer Service: How Can it Improve? Brendon Connelly

Day 2 of the "Customer Service:  How Can it Improve?" feature!

Today's writing is from Bren at Slacker Manager.  Please leave your comments below!

I really love it when my faith and my work converge.  My faith is always there, of course, but it's nice when my work allows a specific outlet for my faith.  Despite working at a Christian university, I don't find occasion to contemplate my faith much at work.  Slicing and dicing data seems kinda removed from spiritual introspection.  There is, however, one area of work that I've often tied directly to my own faith--customer service.  What follows, I think, not only speaks to customer service specifically, but also more broadly to servant leadership.  This post is gonna be a stretch for me, but I hope I am able to shine some light on new ways to consider your customers.

Regardless of your own spiritual outlook, it's safe to say that the account of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" fully qualifies, at the very least, among the best of so called wisdom literature.  If you aren't familiar with it, the sermon is in the Christian bible, in the book of Matthew.  The contents of that particular sermon have been dubbed "The Beatitudes."  There are eight bits to the beatitudes and I believe that, taken as a whole, they are probably the best guidance ever given for customer service.  I say "taken as a whole" because each of the beatitudes can be overwrought and misapplied when taken out of the context of the whole.  The idea here is to view your customers through this lens of the beatitudes.  Once you're able to see your customers through this lens, the next step is to view oneself through the same lens.  The inevitable result is a deeper understanding of the common threads of humanity.

Here's the quick version of the eight beatitudes (if you want to check it out yourself, the full version of the sermon on the mount begins in the 5th chapter of Matthew and continues throught 7th chapter):

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
2. Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land.
3. Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
4. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
5. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
8. Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I think the guts of this post is probably book fodder for somebody, since I couldn't find a single reference to the beatitudes as a model for customer service.  Actually, the really interesting book would be the whole Sermon on the Mount as a model for customer service.  But the Beatitudes work for a post like this because it's a list and easily digested.  The meat of this post has already been stated, but to be clear I'll say it again: taken as a whole, the beatitudes are a great roadmap to excellent customer service. 

Now I admit, if you aren't familiar with them, at first glance the beatitudes make it seem like Jesus is advising milquetoast as a way of life.  Upon further reflection and context, however, quite the opposite is true.  In fact, what's being laid out with the beatitudes is a philosophy of other-centered attention.  It's really just the golden rule, expanded. 

The "for what it's worth disclaimer": I have no idea how theologically correct the following thoughts are, and frankly, I don't much care.  What follows here are just my own reflections on a powerful bit of wisdom, and how I personally can apply it to work.  What I do care about is treating customers with dignity and respect, and these eight beatitudes pave the way.  So let's run through 'em.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
My take on this first beatitude is that we're all in the same boat. Though we gain varying degrees of mastery of our jobs, at some level, if we're honest, we remain beginners--"poor in spirit".  We're always conscious of the fact that the more knowledge we have, the less we actually know. I think the first beatitude speaks pretty well to this sense of begninner-ness.  Further, acknowledging this helps bring us to level ground with our customers.  We know that, despite the imbalance of product knowledge, we are ultimately equals.  And transactions between equals are way more likely to culminate in mutually agreeable results.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land
The best thing about the beatitudes is how well they dovetail each other.  If "poor in spirit" is akin to beginner-ness, then seeing the "meek" in our customers (and selves) is akin to recognizing their (our) sense of humility.  Put another way, our customers see us as the experts in our fields, and too often they're blinded by our brilliance and knowledge.  We ought to learn to better recognize our meek customers.  When we do, we need to set aside our pride and set aside all our notions of salesmanship.  We ought to really try to remember what it's like to not know the answers.  We should be meeting our customers with a shared sense of humility toward the learning curve ahead.  If you've got "the land" and you want to sell it to your meek customers, then you need to become meek yourself.

Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted
This is a funky one.  I mean, who's mourning anyway?  From a customer service perspective, I think the mourners are those customers who have given up on the possibility that they won't be taken advantage of.  They've been around the block with  used car salesmen and they're tired of being on guard.  Their comfort is you--your ability to be authentic and honest.  Will you betray the trust of a mourner?  Or will you comfort them with your authenticity and warmth of soul?

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill
What's it mean for a customer to hunger and thirst after justice?  I say it means they deeply desire congruency between what you say and what you do.  If those two actions are out of whack, the customers will seek out your competitors.  If your competitors are out of whack too, your customers are likely to create a company that fills their need.  Customers hunger for companies that deliver what they say they'll deliver, and customers will get their fill, one way or another.  Why not serve it up to them?

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy
This has got to be the easiest of the customer service beatitudes to understand.  It's the Golden Rule, rephrased.  Show some compassion to your customers and they'll give it back to you when you need it.  In "Love is the Killer App", Tim Sanders mentions how his favorite dry cleaner lost one of his shirts.  He showed them mercy by continuing to give them business.  Later, when he needed a suit pressed in an hour, they took care of him without complaint.  This beatitude, and the Golden Rule, can help create a virtuous cycle that keeps your customers coming back, even when you blow it.  And you will blow it sometimes.

Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God
To be clean of heart is to be open, honest and authentic (that word again!).  To be clean of heart is to enter into our transactions with pure motives--and not necessarily pure profit motives!  To have a clean heart is to operate from a place of potential vulnerability and risk.  Despite the damage that can be done to a clean heart person, more often than not you'll find a quiet respect for your point of view.  To be sure, some will try to take advantage of the clean of heart, but that's where the next beatitude comes in handy.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God
Well, the peacemaker business sits pretty well with this pacifist Quaker, but beyond the obvious, having the heart of a peacemaker means having a willingness to sacrifice our own convenience for the benefit of others.  Being a peacemaker doesn't mean rolling over for your customer when there's a problem.  Rather, it means hearing their concerns in an 'active listening' kind of way, and having a response that is custom made for them.  Being a peacemaker means we'll take the high road and believe in the honesty of the customer, and at the same time we'll work toward a mutual understanding of our shared needs.

Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
There must be a reason this beatitude is last.  It seems difficult to understand, let alone apply to customer service.  My take here is that this is a reminder to all of us about the sanctity of our customers.  They suffer and yet their suffering doesn't eliminate their constant search for the justice mentioned above.  Like the poor, who are always with us, so are the customers.  But, despite (or maybe because of) their suffering and searching, the market will reward them.  They'll find what they're looking for, if not from you, then from elsewhere.  Customers aren't going away, but they might go away from you if you don't pay attention to the beatitudess of customer service.

So that's it.  I have an odd mixture of smugness and dissatisfaction about these ideas.  On one hand, I'm kinda happy about the mental gymnastics that generated this post.  On the other hand, I don't think this is complete.  It's just a corner of a larger picture that's presented across the whole Sermon on the Mount.  The beatitudes were relatively easier to work with, strictly in terms of length and soundbite-ness.  But the larger Sermon is the true meat of customer service.  Maybe I'll continue this thinking another day.  In the meantime, I hope this offered a new perspective for you...

Comments

[Dave]

If you went through mental gymnastics putting this masterful simile together Bren, then I just went through an Ironman on the road of thought that it evoked!

[K. Todd Storch]

Bren,

What an awesome body of work. I think you should submit this to ChangeThis: for a manifesto.

I believe this is a book wanting to get out of you.

I need to read a few more times as well to truly appreciate this.

Excellent.

Todd

[Rosa]

Wow Bren.

Late yesterday afternoon, long before I read this, I described you to others in our Ho'ohana Community, as someone I feel I've learned an incredible amount from in the short span of our friendship. This, may be the lesson you are destined to give us all.

[Srini]

Bren,
Great post. I love to use metaphors when I talk about things that mean a lot to me. It is gratifying to see that the art of metaphor is alive and kicking! Sometimes, the really thorny concepts like customer service can come to life with a great metaphor and that is exactly what happened here. I want to add my 2 cents here. Someone commented yesterday that most CS reps are employees and not entrepreneurs like Winston and hence cannot show passion. After reading your views too, passion comes much after compassion or a basic sense of interconnectedness with fellow humans who just happen to be customers in this particular interaction.
However, a lot of companies kill this compassion effectively by constraining what a CS rep can or cannot do. That is why, the first time I read Nordstrom's policy manual, it gave me the goosebumps. The entire manual is a small wallet card, where the key message is "In all your activities, use your common sense". That's it. How many companies can create that empowerment along with the enabling systems to make it happen?
I believe that the first step on this journey for any company is to make sure that the top management of the company spends at least 1 week in a year handling customer service...be it across the counter, in a call center or on the field.
For a company to take this bold step, it needs both compassion and passion. Great post. Thank you for the amount of work that you put into this.

[Tom]

Bren:
I am impressed on several levels. Just to name a few: (1)Having the courage to use Biblical references in a secular world; (2) aligning The Beatitudes with what some consider a business necessity or burden (expense); (3) having it all make very plausible sense.

I have had reviewers (2) tell me my (written/published) work is too Christian since I made reference to Greenleaf's Servant Leadership concept as being Biblically based. That frightens me to think our society is now so separation minded that you cannot refer to something as being Biblical and have it considered as politically incorrect.

Customer service itself is a troublesome phrase to some. CS is a department in a lot of companies whose function it is to clean up after the rest of the organization after customers have not been served well by others within that organization. For them CS is Empathy Management (the poor in spirit or even mourners).

To others CS is what you are forced to render in order to get favorable performance ratings on a 360 evaluation.

Lastly, and how it should be viewed, CS is a way of life for some. It is living their faith in every event of their work or at the very least, as you say, expansion of the Golden Rule.

What you have captured is all of those. Of course, the translation of scripture you use makes it much more "secular world" friendly. In any regard it is well worth the time and effort to read and contemplate. I think it would make a great book. You know my passion for peace-making in the work place...this fits very well.

Well done, or as my friend the Admiral would say, "Bravo Zulu."

[Bren]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

Srini, I love Nordstrom's concept of common sense, too! I wish it got spread around a little more. Managers too often feel like they need to have such tight control on CS --that those folks can't make independent judgements. Someone yesterday mentioned allowing CS reps to give stuff away at their discretion--a great idea for making customers happy. Anyway, your notes about compassion and passion seem right on...

[K. Todd Storch]

Bren,

I'm with Tom. I love the direction you took with this "assignment" for the blog series.

This post seems to marry 2 passions that you have and is a great reflection on who you are and your thoughts on the issue.

Todd

[Kurt]

Bren,

Amazing. We need more writing about the situations where faith and business meet. Using the beatitudes to describe best practices in customer service works because Jesus meant for them to be applied on a much larger scale: in service to mankind. Keep up the good work and seriously think about expanding the ideas here in a book.

Kurt

[Yvonne DiVita]

This is insightful, emotional, and original. Looks to me like women aren't the only ones using emotion to connect with others-- Bren gets to the heart of things here-- I believe that's his whole point: to have heart. What a unique and effective way to describe "customer service;" the idea that...whoa! stay with me...the idea that "the customer is always right!" Hmmm...so Dick and Jane, but also, so right. Thank you, Rosa, for sending her to read this. Great work, Bren. Thank you Todd for giving Bren the opportunity. Great minds at work. What's not to like about that???

[Rosemary]

Thanks for your thoughts and the work that went in to it. One of the hardest challenges I face being on the "frontlines" as a Manager, is teaching employees to show empathy towards the customers. I manage a very busy branch of our local bank and our customers come from all walks of life and situations. Our company's customer service policy is one of the best in our city. However high the level, there is still a communication gap between the generations. Example; you have a 25 year old employee taking care of an 80 year old customer, who just lost their spouse. It is rare to find a younger person who can sympathize with the pain this person is feeling, because they are so far removed from it. Your post is definite food for thought- the Beatitudes can be a way to bridge that gap.
It goes along with the Golden Rule; "Do Unto Others"...........