Clients vs. Customers

Customers are people and companies that we have transactional interactions with.

Clients are people and companies that we connect with and build a relationship with so we can provide Extraordinary Service.

Great companies that achieve long-term success have well-documented Client Service Strategies and a standard of excellence and expectation that each member of the team is expected to follow to ensure Extraordinary Service.

Client Service Strategies come from Moments of Truth which are the elements that make up the client service experience. Retailers and Hospitality companies try to emulate it in each of their locations by using a Master or Gold standard checklist to ensure consistency and high standards are maintained. Marriot Hotels and Starbucks are two companies that follow checklists to ensure quality control. 

Seven Moments of Truth for offering Extraordinary Service

1. The Greeting
2. Collecting Information (asking questions)
3. Storytelling – paint an awesome picture
4. Delivery – what they expect
5. The Goodbye/ Thank you
6. The Follow-up
7. The Recovery (if needed)

Let’s take a closer look at the first 3:

The Greeting

The greeting is your first point of contact. I recently did a client service seminar for a retail company and asked them how long a client should wait to be served. They all agreed on 10 seconds. So, I had them sit in silence for 10 excruciating seconds, and after the exercise they agreed that even 5 seconds was too long. 10 seconds felt like 10 minutes when waiting.

Clients expect to be acknowledged and greeted in a timely and polite manner. Customers don’t. Customers are seeking a quick and easy transaction. Visit your local Walmart or grocery store for examples of what Transactional Customer Service looks like.

Collecting Information

More and more companies are now seeing that collecting information is so critical to connecting and understanding their clients. At Lowes, they want your email and postal code, at Starbucks they want your name, spelled correctly or not, so they can call you by your first name and not by your drink.  Collecting information like names, reasons for visit, and what people like or don’t like allows the company to connect with their clients, and makes the interaction more about the client and less about the offering being sold. Clients love this.

Story Telling

Once we have collected the information, we now have the ability to paint an attractive picture or create a desirable offer for the client based on what they have told us they like, want, need and desire. Without information, we can still paint a picture or make an offer, but the offer then becomes more about us and less about them because we’re presuming to understand what they want rather than knowing.

Look at your business. Do you have a Client Service Strategy around all 7 Moment of Truth? Can everyone, everywhere get the same Extraordinary service from anyone in your organization? With the rapid expansion of e-commerce and on-line shops, converting customers into clients is critical.

What is quality support? How do you learn the most effective way to support others?

As CEO of Awesome Journey, Eric Crowell supports a team and has worked with thousands of business leaders to support leadership development. Understanding how to effectively support and empower people is critical to leadership development.

Throughout Eric’s career, he has learned that everyone has different ways in which they want to be supported. The way in which you offer support is just as critical as the support you are offering. Have you ever thought you were supporting someone but ended up angering or irritating them?

For example, a colleague has an important presentation to the board in a week, you offer your support by way of challenging them about the approach they are taking to deliver it and they get defensive = BREAKDOWN! What happened? You thought you were offering support to your colleague by providing insights and options to enhance their presentation and make them look great in front of the board, but your colleague perceived your support as threatening to their skills and competence. It is important to consider the way you approach supporting others to ensure it is well received.

Before offering support, you need to listen to people and make clear requests about how they would like to be supported.

9 Ways to Support Others:

1. Listen to others without judgment
2. Give your time
3. Give quality feedback
4. Offer to do tasks or projects
5. Hold another person accountable for a promise they made
6. Challenge another person or make an unreasonable request of them
7. Teach
8. Empower
9. Care – be in service to them

By having a clear understanding of how to best support others, you can let go of expectations, and make clear requests to each other so, the support that you give is welcomed, accepted, and improves performance.

Insight:

Expectations Create Breakdowns!

What is the difference between an expectation and a request?

• Expectation – you are hoping or anticipating something to happen with another person
• Clear Request – you are directly asking for something to happen with another person

Let go of expectations, and make clear requests about how you can support other people in being successful!

Leadership Challenge:

Be a quality leader this week to a colleague or family member by asking them how you could support them in being successful. Then support them and see the quality result that you create together.

A quality teacher designs learning environments and experiences that have an impact.

A Quality Learning Experience is any experience that:

• Shifts your mindset
• Causes you to see yourself in a new way
• Enables you to awaken another aspect of your Greatness
• Expands your capabilities and capacities to perform at a higher level

I have experienced many Quality Teachers – three of which had huge impacts on my life. They designed transformational learning experiences that shifted my mindset so I could see my Greatness.

As you read this, think to yourself: “Who are the Quality Teachers in my Life?”

My Quality Teachers

Jim Grieve

While in high school I had a part-time job working for Jim Grieve, Owner, and Manager of the local IGA grocery store. At 16 I made a bad decision and got charged for careless driving. I grew up in a small town where this experience made the local paper, so everyone knew about it.

One day after the incident Jim asked to meet with me privately. I thought for sure Jim was going to fire me because of the impact this would have on his reputation. I was wrong.

Jim asked me a simple, yet powerful question, “How can I support you in this experience? Can I help pay your legal bill?” I said no, “My Dad told me I had to pay the legal bill of $3,000.” Without hesitation, Jim said to me, “Eric, I just fired our janitor and I need someone to clean our floors nightly and I am willing to pay you $1,500/month for the next 3 months in addition to your part-time salary, are you interested?” I jumped at the opportunity. Jim’s extraordinary leadership and ability to be a Quality Teacher unlocked an aspect of my Greatness – Be accountable for your mistakes and move forward. Thanks, Jim, for being a Quality Teacher in my life!

Mike Murphy

When I was in University in the late 80s I was living with four guys and I was the house manager. As the house manager, one of my responsibilities was to find a new roommate for the coming school year.

One of the candidates I interviewed was Mike Murphy. I asked him, “Tell me what you did last summer for a job?”

Mike’s response to my question was, “Last summer I got a job tree planting in BC for two months. I made enough money to go to school this year, and took July and August off to ride my bicycle from Anchorage, Alaska, down the west coast of the U.S., across the Sierra Nevada Mountain range in California, down into Death Valley and on to Phoenix, Arizona where I flew back here to London, Ontario to go to school this year.”

I was in AWE and felt somewhat intimidated by the experience Mike had had! I thought, wow would I love to do a trip like that someday.

My expression must have said it all because, without a pause, Mike simply looked me in the eye and made this bold declaration, “Well, with that attitude Eric, I guess you’re not going to do much with your life!”

I was shocked by his boldness and frankness. I thanked him for meeting with me and I left annoyed by his statement.

His words impacted my soul so much that within four days I went home, sold my boat and car, and bought a bicycle. Within 6 weeks I had a job planting trees in BC and a plan to bike from Calgary to Vancouver and down the west coast of the U.S. to San Francisco. Thanks, Mike, for being a Quality Teacher in my life! Mike became our fifth roommate that following year.

Len Hill

Len Hill was one of my professors in University. One day Len came up to me and said, “Eric I really like your commitment to Geology and your work ethic and I am recommending you to the Dean of the Facility of Geology as one of ten students of the forty in your third-year class to write a 4^th year thesis, and I would like to be your advisor.”

I was shocked and honoured. In that moment of excitement, I said yes. When I got home that night, I panicked. I hated writing essays and I had just agreed to write a thesis!

Len saw part of my Greatness – my ability to challenge my comfort zone around writing and project management. I wrote a 76-page thesis and got an A-. This experience shifted my mindset and internal story around “I can’t express myself through quality writing”. I could and I did.

This new mindset was the catalyst for me to create my own Leadership coaching company and the inspiration for my book, “Design Your Life and Live It”. Thanks, Len, for believing in my potential and getting me to see it!

Your Leadership Learning Challenge:

Who has been a Quality Teacher in your life? Ponder the impact their teaching gave you and pay it forward by being a Quality Teacher to someone in your network. Get them to see their Greatness!

Over the last few weeks I have challenged myself to see the opportunity in all my experiences by utilizing the practices of the “Power of a Pause” (pausing my mind) and “Deep Listening” (listening to co-create) when I get emotionally triggered.

When I get emotionally triggered, I can feel the emotion of frustration and anger wanting to dominate my “Way of Being”. My natural way of being is to fight, but through the “Power of the Pause” I am learning to control my initial reactions and ask for support and really practice “Deep Listening” to hear what the other person is saying to me.

Here are 3 Key Insights from Deep Listening:

1. Complaints

Behind every complaint is a “Hidden Request”. Something is not working and someone is trying to communicate it.

Example: You stop by your VP of Operation’s office on a Friday afternoon to see how her week went and you ask a simple question, “How are you and the new VP of Finance making out on the roll out of the new invoicing process?”

The VP of Operations says to you, “I am struggling a lot this week with communicating with the new VP of Finance. She is very opinionated and has to be right all the time in our conversations! I am not looking forward to this coming week as we have a big deadline to meet and all I can think about is how she will want to control how my team and I implement this plan. You may be called in to referee some heated debates.”

What I heard – The hidden request was, “could you please support me in finding a way for me to connect with the new VP of Finance, because right now I am stuck!”

2. Vague

Vague = I don’t want to talk about it (the subject at hand).

Example: You stop by your Director of Maintenances’ office and asked him how his week went and his response was, “It was a good week!” You think to yourself, he has three large projects that he is working on and all he has to say to me is, “It was a good week”.

What I Heard – “Good” is a very vague response. What does good mean? When you inquire further by asking “What does good mean?” you will get the real story and the truth behind what’s working or not working. Being able to pause and really listen enables you to hear what’s below the surface.

3. Frustration/Irritation

Frustration/Irritation = the fringe, the edge of your comfort zone.

Example: This past week I was walking to an all-day leadership training session with one of my business partners. I was carrying my briefcase, computer bag, projector bag, course workbooks, and a flip chart. I became frustrated and irritated and asked myself, “Why am I carrying all of this stuff? Why is my partner not supporting me?”

What I Heard: My frustration is due to a lack of intentional time spent designing the logistics of the training session with my business partner. We did not have a conversation about how all the materials and equipment would get to the location and who would be responsible for the various items.

At this fringe, I came to realize that if I am going to take Awesome Journey to another level of contribution and impact in the world with our expertise, I need to be more intentional about “Designing” every detail of our offer with my teammates!

Your Leadership Challenge:

Practice the “Power of a Pause” and then listen for the opportunity in the experience you are having to see the gap or blind-spots in your capacity to lead effectively. Can you hear the “Hidden Request” that is underneath every complaint?

A few months ago, one of my business partners came to me after a team meeting and said,

“Have you ever considered why no one on the team ever challenges you in our meetings?”

I was a bit puzzled. It had never occurred to me that my team members were not challenging me in meetings. I just thought everyone was agreeing with my great ideas and insights, and that everyone was on the same page. It had never crossed my mind that my teammates might be simply agreeing with me because challenging me led to conflict.

When I took a step back, I realized that when someone had an opposing idea or questioned me, I was continuously shutting down their ideas (and them) because my listening was all about “Listening to Fix” vs “Listening to Connect”.

When I went to a meeting with my “Listening to Fix” mindset I was listening for what was wrong with other people’s ideas so I could shut down any thoughts and ideas that didn’t align with my ideas. In doing this, I made my teammates feel small, wrong and judged, and over time they started telling me what I wanted to hear to avoid confrontation with me.

What a Breakthrough for me when one of my business partners had the courage to give me some “Quality Feedback” that I could hear, “Eric, who are you being such that members of your team never challenge you in meetings?” In this moment, I leveraged one of our grounding tools called the “Power of a Pause” and asked myself, “Is this question a Threat or an Opportunity?”

It was an opportunity. When people “CARE” about being great leaders and developing a world-class organization, they provide real and sometimes critical quality feedback.

Who was I BEING in this Breakdown:

• Closed off
• Aggressive and confrontational
• Scarcity mindset (when challenged, I saw it as a threat to my competency, not an opportunity for support)
• Small thinking
• Fearful
• Automatic vs Intentional in my listening and speaking
• In control and unwilling to be vulnerable

This Breakdown experience showed me a key blind spot in my leadership –  who I was being was causing a shut-down within my organization.

By making the transformation from “Listening to Fix” to “Listening to Connect”, I connected with my colleagues and saw their ideas from a place of support vs threat. Through this shift in mindset, performance and culture have improved at our company because everyone’s thoughts, ideas and comments are being honoured.

“What Does Real Support Look Like?”

1. Listening to all ideas and concerns with the intention to connect and co-create
2. Holding each other accountable to promises
3. Being a sounding board to move an issue forward
4. Willing to be challenged
5. Allowing others to teach you
6. Being open to feedback

“Be willing to be Vulnerable and allow others on your team to give you Quality Feedback to support you in unlocking your Greatness!”

Remember, people who give you Quality Feedback care about you and your future possibilities!

Your Leadership Learning Challenge:

Be courageous and ask a trusted colleague to give you Quality Feedback and listen to their feedback with the clear intention to use the Quality Feedback to give you access to new ways of Being a Quality Leader to your team.

As the CEO of Awesome Journey, I am learning how detrimental negative self-talk is to a company’s culture and growth.

Last week I found myself slipping into my negative self-talk while reviewing some poor results from a project. My mind immediately jumped to “these incompetent leaders I have couldn’t get the job done”. Essentially, I avoided taking any person responsibility and accountability for my part in the situation.

My negative self-talk keeps me and my team STUCK!

This week I chose to be intentionally different with my responses to situations. I chose to Let Go of being automatic in my thinking. In automatic thinking, we are susceptible to being emotionally triggered by a conversation where our first reaction may be to feel threatened and start to Blame, Justify or Rationalize why “I am right and others are wrong”.

By being Intentional in your thinking, you can have objective and generative self-talk by saying “I am responsible for the poor performance on this project!”

Empowering Questions to Support Teams:

1. What do we want?
2. What is missing for us as a team to be in action to achieve our goals for this project to be successful?

• Conversation that is missing (with myself or with a colleague)?
• Skill that is missing?
• Commitment that is missing? (weak agreement)

Key Support Structures That are Missing?

• People
• Processes and systems
• Practices
• Tools

What is my next action to support my team to create future success with this project?

Dis-empowering Questions that get you Stuck:

• What went wrong?
• Whose fault, is it?
• What needs to be fixed?

Key Learning:

• I am no longer willing to step over or around my issues or challenges
• Master the practice of “The Power of a Pause”
• When you get emotionally triggered – Pause, Breathe and ask yourself, “Is this a threat or an opportunity?”
• Master the practice of “Asking Empowering Questions” to generate a future possibility

Your Leadership Learning Challenge:

Identify an issue that you are currently stepping over or around and take personal responsibility for generating a future possibility by asking yourself the suite of “Empowering Questions”. You will be amazed at the outcomes you create for yourself and your team!

Send us your personal transformation story about your experience!

Great leaders teach and great teachers lead.

As a CEO and Executive Leadership Coach I have learned that there are 3 key roles that every great leader plays:

1. Steward: Clarifying what you care about
2. Designer: Designing intentional conversations to support the things you care about and determining what to focus on to achieve your goals
3. Teacher: Designing impactful learning environments and learning experiences to support the things we care about

In the past, my mindset about being a quality teacher was about passing on my wisdom and expertise to my clients and staff; listen to me and follow me because I know what I am talking about.

Over the last year my Executive Leadership Coach has been challenging me to see myself in a new mindset; as a “Quality Teacher” with a focus on learning environments and learning experiences.

By designing impactful learning environments (a place conducive to collaboration and sharing) and learning experiences (situations and activities that will foster a group of people working together for a common purpose and goal to achieve a desired outcome), and engaging in Generative Conversations, I am really beginning to see breakthroughs with my clients and staff.

6 Generative Communication Skills of a Quality Teacher:

1. Deep Listening: Listen to connect and co-create
2. Dialogue Conversations: Listen to connect and co-create. Allow all ideas to be present in a conversation to leverage the collective intelligence of the whole group to build a shared understanding about the issue being discussed.
3. Holding Space to Allow Opposing Ideas and Conflicts to reveal new possibilities through conversation.
4. Asking Empowering Questions to Challenge Assumptions (yours and others) to create shared understanding of the topic being discussed.
5. Abundance Mindset: Being open to the possibilities of what we as a team can discover through our collective intelligence to resolve an issue.
6. Self-Awareness: Leveraging the “Power of a Pause” to stay present to the moment and allow listening to come from a place of connection and co-creation with others. Suspend judgement and assumption to support creating “shared understanding” of the topic being discussed.

By leveraging these Six Generative Communication skills, you will be able to harness the collective intelligence of the team to create Breakthrough Experiences that will allow your business to move forward.

Quality teaching is messy, painful, unexpected, and in the end, joyful. Everyone has a voice in the dialogue conversation and ideas are shared that may be disliked and opposed by some, but when everyone is committed to revealing their blind spots and building a shared understanding to support the success of the team, the results are brilliant!

Often people get emotionally triggered as they hear things they don’t like, however by allowing everyone a voice in the dialogue conversation new ideas and innovations emerge to create quality future possibilities for the team to move forward.

Leadership Challenge for this week:

Define one issue where you can be a Quality Teacher to your team by designing an innovative learning experience or learning environment through Generative Communication skills to create a breakthrough experience with your team.

This week I asked myself, “Do I truly understand what real support means to me?”

After coaching thousands of executives, I can say that many leaders have a blind spot when it comes to real support that helps to grow their company. When C-Suite leaders receive real support, there is a tendency to put their back up and get defensive or angry. Why? Because someone is pointing out a gap or issue in your company and you feel responsible; you feel criticized.

I recently had a situation where one of my teammates challenged me with an idea to support moving the company forward and I got triggered and heard, “You’re not doing well enough”. What my teammate really said was “I am trying to support you in making Awesome Journey the World-Class company you and I want to create.” I was unable to hear real support in that moment.

What does real support look like to me?

I allow my team to:

1. Challenge and question me
2. Hold me accountable to my promises and agreements I have made
3. Be a sounding board to my ideas and challenges
4. Give me feedback and embracing it
5. Teach me
6. Serve me – give me their time to execute projects with their expertise
7. Care about me

The new question that I am pondering is – “How much support am I allowing into my world to support me in being a Powerful Leader of a Great Company?”

My Learning from this week: “Letting Go to Let Come!”

Over the past few months I have been receiving a lot of feedback from many people about my Leadership Blog. Thank you to everyone who reads it – I always welcome feedback!

I have come to realize there is a strong desire to hear about my personal experiences and insights as a C-Suite leader and an Executive Leadership Coach. This week I would like to speak to a key insight and learning I had about being a quality leader to my team at Awesome Journey.

I recently attended a Deloitte event honouring companies nominated for Top 50 Best Managed Companies in Canada. One of the keynote speakers talked about “Being Courageous as a CEO”. A comment she made that really stuck with me was, “80% of CEOs of Private Companies in Canada are struggling with growing their business.” After working with so many C-Suite leaders who struggle with strong leadership, this statistic did not surprise me, but I did reflect on why the C-Suite struggles with leadership and company growth.

I concluded that the reason why 80% of CEOs of Private Companies are struggling with growth is because they don’t see their own blind spots that impact the business from growing. As a C-Suite leader, it is natural and easy to look externally to solve problems, and much harder to look internally.

Courageous Leaders are willing to look at themselves and ask a transformational question – “What do I need to “Let Go” of for the company to move forward?”

Letting Go of Listening to Fix and Embracing Listening to Connect

As I become more intentional about Listening to Connect with my teammates and my clients, I truly hear what they CARE about, and I support them with what they CARE about by holding them accountable. “Listening to Fix” keeps everyone stuck in the problem vs “Listening to Connect” to create action.

Letting Go of Control and Embracing Trust

I trust my teammates to execute on their promises by “Coordinating Action” with them and clearly communicating requests through intentional conversations. My team is working together and creating action to build and sustain the company. All I needed to do was make a clear request for support, receive a promise to my request (have a clear agreement), and put the completion date in my calendar to ensure accountability from my teammate to deliver on our agreement.

When we make clear requests, and receive promises from each other, we have clear agreements which build a relationship of trust. The need for control disappears and action begins.

Letting Go of the Story that “I am too busy” and Embracing Being Intentional with my Time

When I don’t design intentional conversations, I give my valuable time away to issues and minutia that do not generate action to a future possibility – I waste my time!

A key practice of greatness that I have been practicing this week is “The Power of a Pause”. Before I make a promise to someone’s request, I ask myself:

• Is their request clear?
• Do I have the time to honour this person’s request?
• Am I the best person to execute their request?

I am being much more intentional about who and what gets my valuable time. The result is that I am more productive and do not feel drained at the end of the day.

With the support of my business/leadership coach and my amazing team, I have become more confident in exercising the principle of “Letting Go and Letting Come”, which has provided me with the freedom to create future possibilities for our clients and the company.

My Learning Challenge:

Take 10 minutes to sit quietly and breathe. At the end of the 10 minutes, ask yourself, “What is one thing I will “Let Go of”? Listen to what comes into your mind, and act on it!