Lessons from The Overlook: Embrace the Slow Times

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a monthly update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

We've just finished an extended busy season where The Overlook has been rented every weekend since November. Revenue is up considerably over last year and we're very happy.

My wife, Sally, and I are also glad things are slowing down. 

Small maintenance issues add up over time in any home, condo, or apartment. The Overlook is no exception, but it's difficult to do that maintenance when someone else is staying in the house. 

After a winter of roaring fires, the fireplace needed cleaning.

That maintenance is essential to keeping everything looking good and in smooth working order, so a temporary slow period gives us an opportunity to get a few chores done.

One of those chores is conducting preventative maintenance (PM). We have a checklist of items that need to be done so we don't forget. This month's PM chores include:

• Inspecting house systems like the HVAC, septic system, etc.

• Verifying all electrical, plumbing, and appliances are in good working order

• Deep cleaning the house

There are a few places that need some paint, so we'll be coordinating with a local painter to get that work done.

Sally and I are also making a last minute trip to the cabin to take some photos of the interior. We've made a few small changes, such as hanging new artwork or changing the bedding in one room, so we'll be able to use the updated photos for marketing on our website, our property manager's website, and on The Overlook's Facebook page.

Of course, this also means we get to enjoy staying at The Overlook ourselves!

Many businesses have slow periods. It's helpful to take advantage of these times to work on important projects that can't get done when it's busy.

For example:

• Complete a preventative maintenance checklist

• Schedule larger projects, such as renovations

• Create new initiatives, such as marketing campaigns

Yes, we'd all like the revenue to keep streaming in. The silver lining of a slow period is we know we're keeping The Overlook looking great and in good condition, which means we'll be ready once it starts to get busy again!

Seven Simple Ways to Improve Your Customer Focus

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Coins can be a mini customer service hassle.

Think about the last time you bought something with cash and needed to collect change. There's an awkward exchange as the cashier hands you the bills and then dumps the coins on top of it. It's tricky to hang on to everything.

A drive thru line is the worst place for this to happen. I've sometimes found myself too close to the wall of the building to open my car door and retrieve the lost change. There's an awkward dance that follows as you pull forward while gesturing to the driver behind you to stay put for a moment so you can collect your missing 17 cents.

There's a way to avoid this.

The cashier can put the coins in your palm first and then place the bills on top. It's much easier to control the coins that way.

That's just one example of a simple way to focus your service on your customer. Here are six more you can easily implement.

Make the Effort to Follow-up

Some customer service situations require a follow-up contact. The big question is who should take responsibility?

Let's say a customer calls to check the status of an item she ordered. The customer service rep verifies the order is in production and is scheduled to ship the following day for a Friday delivery.

A transactional customer service rep might say, "Give me a call if it doesn't arrive by Friday and I'll track it down for you."

A customer-focused rep might say, "I'll monitor the status of your order and follow-up with you on Friday to make sure it arrived in good condition."

Use Clear Language

It's easy to fall into the trap of using unclear language. 

Imagine a customer is anxious to get a billing problem resolved. You want to keep him happy, so you tell him, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it right away!"

The problem with this word choice is "right away" might mean within one day to you, while the customer interprets "right away" as within the hour.

A more customer-focused is to use clear language to describe exactly when the error should be corrected. "You should see the correct amount on your account by 5pm tomorrow."

Do the Time Zone Math

Serving customers across multiple time zones can be tricky. 

For instance, if you're in Phoenix, should you say good morning when it's 9:30am your time but your customer is calling from Atlanta? (Trick question, it depends on the time of year since Phoenix does not participate in daylight savings time.)

Many of us become adept at time zone conversions after awhile. We can make things easier for our customers by working out the math so they don't have to. So if I'm in Phoenix and my customer is in Atlanta, I can tell her I'll call her at 11:30am her time without her having to worry what time that is where I am.

Anticipate Hidden Needs

My wife and I checked into a small inn not long ago and were about to head out to dinner. The front desk associate had recommended a restaurant just a few blocks away, so we decided to walk.

She handed us a pair of flashlights as we were about to leave. "Use these while you are walking," she said. "The road is dark and there is no sidewalk, so the flashlights will make it easier for cars to see you. You can never be too careful!"

That small act of kindness not only kept us safe, it made us feel as though the associate genuinely cared. 

You can create a similar feeling for your customers by anticipating needs your customers aren't yet aware of. Use your knowledge and experience to be on the lookout for opportunities to share proactive service.

Use the Pre-Emptive Acknowledgement

You can often defuse a customer's anger by acknowledging their frustration before they reach a boiling point.

It's probably happened to you. Let's say you go out to eat on a busy Friday night. You place your order and enjoy a nice conversation with friends or family. After awhile, you start feeling hungry and notice it's taken a long time for your food to arrive.

Just then, your serve arrives at your table, apologizes for the delay, assures you that your order is coming right out, and offers to refill your drinks.

That's the pre-emptive acknowledgement. You might have grown much more frustrated if your server had disappeared completely until your food arrived. But by showing up at your table to apologize for the wait, it becomes a non-event.

Look for opportunities to do the same thing for your customers. The trick is you have to spot situations where a customer is likely to get angry before their anger comes on too strong!

Here’s a more in-depth explanation:

Using the preemptive acknowledgment technique from Working with Upset Customers by Jeff Toister

Take the Thank You Letter Challenge

This one is the ultimate customer focus exercise.

Start by writing a thank you letter to yourself that you would hope to receive from a customer. The letter should describe how you helped the customer in some way.

Next, read the letter each day for 21 days and try to receive that same feedback from a real customer. I've created this daily email reminder to help you with this challenge.

Take Action!

Customer-focus is a powerful skill.

It helps you better understand your customers, which in turn makes it easier to meet and often exceed their expectations. I encourage you to try at least one of these exercises right now and see how they can make a difference!

Here are some additional resources to help you:

• Reminders: Customer Service Tip of the Week emails

• Book: The Service Culture Handbook

• Video: Leading a Customer Centric Culture

Why You Should Stop Surveying Your Customers

What if you discovered your business was doing something that more than 25 percent of your customers disliked?

That should get your attention, though some businesses engage in unfriendly practices that bring in significant revenue. Think of airline baggage fees, hotel resort fees, and cable equipment rental fees. 

Okay, but what if you learned an activity that more than 25 percent of your customers disliked delivered absolutely no value to your business?

You'd probably stop it immediately.

The customer service survey falls into that category for many companies. Customers don't like it and it delivers absolutely no value. Smart customer service leaders should either fix their broken surveys or stop doing them altogether. 

Read on to learn which path you should take.

Customer Service Survey Drawbacks

A 2017 study from Customer Thermometer asked 1,000 customers to give their opinions on surveys by, you guessed it, surveying them.

• 25 percent dislike being surveyed after a purchase

• 47 percent dislike being prompted for feedback on a website

• 43 percent dislike being surveyed in exchange for a contest entry

The caveat is an inherent bias in the results. The chances of you filling out a survey about surveys when you really don't like surveys is pretty low. So we could reasonably expect the positive results to be inflated.

In fact, 45 percent of respondents reported they routinely ignored survey requests.

Okay, so far the data shows that surveys annoy a lot of customers and nearly half of customers don't complete surveys, so they aren't representative of your customer population.

It gets worse.

A 2016 study from Interaction Metrics concluded that 68 percent of surveys from leading retailers were "total garbage," meaning the surveys yielded no useful information.

The kicker is a 2017 study from Capgemini Consulting revealed that companies improperly used Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys saw no difference in customer perception compared to companies that did not track NPS or customer experience data.

The big question is whether it's worth the risk of annoying so many customers if your business is getting zero value out of your surveys.

How to Tell if Your Survey Generates Value

Think about the intention behind a customer service survey. This is what a survey plan should look like:

• Generate meaningful insights

• Use those insights to take action

• Measurably improve the business through those actions

So you can start assessing the value by starting at the beginning. Does your survey generate any meaningful insights?

Here are just a few questions it might answer:

• What makes your customers happy or unhappy?

• What products, services, or locations are performing the best or worst?

• What generates the most complaints?

Insight alone isn't enough. You'll need to actually take action. Examples include:

• Fixing customer pain points

• Reducing customer service waste (ex: repeat complaints)

• Strengthening areas where customers are happy

Finally, you'll need to make sure those actions are generating measurable business results in some one. For instance:

• Can you improve customer retention?

• Can you serve customers more efficiently?

• Can grow revenue through more word-of-mouth advertising?

These are all examples and by no means an exhaustive list. The bottom line is your survey needs to be a conduit to improving the business or else it's a waste of time.

Take Action

I've assembled a customer service survey resource page to help you learn more about what makes a great survey. You'll find blog posts and helpful videos.

Take time to evaluate your survey. If it's not driving value you'll have a big decision to make. Should you scrap it or fix it?

How Fast Should a Business Respond to an Email?

April 7, 2020 Update: A newer version of this study is now available.

Email is a critical customer service channel.

A 2017 study from inContact revealed that just 43 percent of customers were highly satisfied with their most recent email customer service interaction. Those who were happy cited speed as a top delighter.

The average company takes 12 hours and 10 minutes to respond to an email, according to a 2018 study from SuperOffice. That's certainly better than the old one business day standard, but is it fast enough?

In April 2018, I surveyed more than 1,200 consumers to learn exactly how fast they expect businesses to respond to emails. The survey also examined response time expectations for Twitter and Facebook messages.

You can read the analysis below or browse the data yourself.

Study Overview

This is the first time I've done this study since 2015, when those results revealed the new email response time standard was just one hour.

The 2018 study surveyed more than 1,200 consumers to see if this has changed.

Participants were asked how quickly they expected a response when contacting a business via email. Response time expectations for Twitter and Facebook messages were also assessed.

Finally, the study examined whether response time expectations varied by age group. For instance, do Millennials expect a faster response than Baby Boomers?

The age groups were defined using definitions from the Pew Research Center. One note, too few members of Generation Z (ages 21 and under) and the Silent Generation (ages 73 and over) participated to include their perspective in the age group portion of the study.

Email Response Time Expectations

Businesses should target a response time standard of one hour, with 15 minutes representing world-class service..

This conclusion comes from looking at the response time that will meet the expectations of at least 80 percent of customers. 

This can be a little confusing at first because the top choice was one day, with 43 percent selecting it. But one day only meets the expectations of those who selected one day or 2+ days, which is a total of 56 percent. You pick up 14 percent of customers if you can respond to email within four hours, though that's still just 70 percent of the total.

A one hour email response time will meet the expectations of 89 percent of your customers. Companies aiming for world-class customer service should respond within 15 minutes or less.

The study looked at response time expectations by age. The responses were fairly close together, but there was a mild surprise. Baby Boomers want the fastest response.

A smaller group of 206 respondents was asked an additional question: How quickly do you expect a response when emailing a coworker?

Response time expectations for this group are very high and arguably unreasonable, with 41 percent of people expecting coworkers to respond to email within one hour. 

The pressure to respond quickly causes many people skim and scan emails from colleagues. They then send partial responses which generates a lot of unnecessary back and forth. One study found that the average email conversation at work includes 4.5 messages.

Which generation has the highest expectations for coworkers? Generation X leads the pack on this one.

Twitter Direct Message Response Expectations

Businesses should target a response time standard of 15 minutes.

Anything slower that 15 minutes risks disappointing a large portion of customers. This can present a challenge for businesses as Twitter is not as popular as more traditional service channels such as email, phone, or even chat. There may not be enough volume to justify staffing for a 15 minute response time. 

Once again, Baby Boomers have the highest response time expectations:

One note from the study is only 40 percent of participants message businesses via Twitter. That percentage is only slightly lower for Baby Boomers, with 35 percent saying they use Twitter for customer service.

Facebook Message Response Time Expectations

Businesses should target a response time standard of 1 hour, with 15 minutes representing world-class service.

A one hour response time may be adequate for most customers, but 17 percent still want to hear back more quickly. For Facebook, it's Millennials who want the fastest response.

Only 50 percent of participants message businesses via Facebook. Millennial Facebook usage is slightly higher than the group average, with 55 percent saying they have contacted a business via a Facebook message.

Get More Insights

I hosted a webinar where I shared some more granular data from the study along with several tactics for meeting customer demands for fast responses. You can watch the webinar replay.

Study: Executives Are Delusional About Customer-Centricity

There's a famous statistic that 80 percent of executives believed their organization delivered a superior customer experience, but only 8 percent of customers agreed.

This comes from this 2005 report from Bain, so it's a little out of date.

A 2017 study by Capgemini Consulting sought to provide updated insight into the so-called executive disconnect. A total of 450 executives and 3,300 consumers were surveyed, though this study focused specifically on the digital experience. This includes searching for product information online, using a company's app, or searching for technical support information on a website.

The results?

Executives still believe they are doing well, with 75 percent saying their organization is customer-centric. Just 30 percent of customers agree. On the bright side, it has improved since 2005! 

That's still a pretty big disconnect. Here's are three key insights from the report.

Insight #1: Experience is a Differentiator

Let's say a customer is trying to choose between two products, your's and a competitor's. 

The customer visits each website to learn more about the product, watch some tutorials, and see which one best fits her needs. That aspect of the digital experience is a key part of the customer journey, so it's important to get it right.

Capgemini discovered that 81 percent of consumers will pay a premium for a better experience.

Last fall, I purchased an ecobee smart thermostat for a vacation rental property I own even though my initial choice was a more well-known competitor. The reason was ecobee's website was intuitively laid out and the company's helpful support gave me far greater confidence that their product would work as intended.

Insight #2: Better Experience Boosts NPS

This may be obvious, but it's great to have data to back it up.

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, tracks how likely a customer is to recommend your product or business to someone else. Many businesses grow revenue through word-of-mouth referrals, so this can be an essential metric.

The study found that companies that used NPS results to regularly make adjustments to business operations enjoyed an NPS score that averaged 14 points higher than companies that did not closely link NPS and operations.

This is an epidemic in the business world. It seems like nearly every company surveys its customers, whether its NPS or another model. Yet much of that data goes completely unused.

The lesson here is your survey can be really valuable, if you actually use it. Here's an online course on how to design and implement an effective survey.

Insight #3: Poor Experiences Hurt Business

Losing a customer is a big concern when someone experiences a service failure. Similar to other reports, the Capgemini study found that 20 percent of customers stopped doing business with a company after a poor experience.

This should leave two important questions:

1. What about other 80 percent?

2. What are your customers doing?

A study by Dr. Venessa Funches shed some light on what angry customers do when they continue doing business with a company:

• 35 percent do less business

• 70 percent spread negative word-of-mouth about the company

It's up to you to find out the answer to the second question, what are your customers doing after a poor experience.

One tactic that will help is to make sure customers can opt-in to a follow-up contact when they complete one of your surveys. This allows you to potentially save their business and gain valuable insight into what went wrong.

Take Action

Studies like the Capgemini report are fascinating because they provide general insight into the world of customer experience and customer service.

My advice to customer service leaders is to use this data as a prompt to check your own organization. 

• How do your customers feel about their experience?

• Is a poor customer experience costing your company revenue?

• What can you do to improve?

How Malaysia's HappyFresh Created a Customer Service Vision

I recently received an email from Timothy Chan, Regional Fleet Acquisition and Retention Specialist at HappyFresh.

While I get a lot of similar emails, this one stood out for both his enthusiasm and the fact that my book had somehow made it all the way to Malaysia.

"Tim from Malaysia here. I work for an online grocery shopping company. I have just finished reading your book, The Service Culture Handbook, and I must say I enjoyed it immensely. 

"I have just recently been put in charge of managing the customer service team at my company (after being transferred from the logistics department). Just last week I took your advice and held a meeting to decide on a customer service vision—it was a lot of fun and I am very happy with the vision my team ultimately decided upon. Now begins my more difficult task of really embedding the vision into our culture."

I was curious to learn more about how Chan and his team used the concepts from the book, so we corresponded via email and he graciously shared his story.

The HappyFresh customer service team.

Q: Tell me a little about what your team does and the customers it serves.

"As Malaysia’s leading online grocery shopping company, our team is hard at work every day assisting and serving both our customers as well as our fleet of around 100 shoppers and deliverymen."

Q: What was the process to develop the customer service vision?

"I helped the team develop this vision by following the step-by-step guide provided in The Service Culture Handbook. Started by giving a presentation about Customer Service Vision which included a lot of stories from companies that have thrived by staying true to their visions (with particular emphasis on Zappos).

"The presentation was attended by representatives from the customer service and logistic team as well as the heads of Field Operations and HR. After the presentation, everyone was divided into 2 groups to draft their visions. By comparing the visions, we then decided on certain words that we felt simply could not be left out from the finalized vision and from these words our vision was born:

"Your professional, personal pal throughout our journey together."

Q: What does the vision mean to you?

"To me, the vision means that we should always strive to be a true friend—someone who truly cares and genuinely wants to help. However, we need to remember that we are also professionals and should always behave as such.

"The ‘journey’ part of the vision carries 2 meanings:

"Firstly, it is a reminder that we are on a never-ending journey of constantly striving to be as true to the vision as possible. Secondly, it reminds us that there are different parts to every journey (beginning, middle and end) and we should always act accordingly.

"What I love about the vision is that it can be applied equally well to the way we treat customers, our fleet of shoppers and drivers and also to the way we treat one another as colleagues."

Q: What are you doing to make sure everyone on your team knows the vision?

"I conduct regular 1 to 1 check-in sessions with each member of our small CS team. As we discuss how we can improve performance during these sessions, I try to refer to the vision as much as possible. Furthermore, one of our talented CS representatives, A.K., created stickers to stick on everyone’s laptops/desktops so that we can always clearly see our vision."

Q: What unexpected challenges or obstacles did you encounter throughout this process?

"It is not easy ingraining the vision into the psyche of a team. It takes a lot of effort to persistently champion the vision and to make other people start championing it as well. It is important to ‘walk the talk’, be willing to be vulnerable and be open to scrutiny."

Q: How has having a customer service vision been helpful?

"With so many KPIs, goals, frustrations and issues, having a customer service vision has been like having a guiding star to turn to whenever we felt unsure or overwhelmed."

Webinar Recap: Ask Me Anything About Building a Service Culture

On Wednesday, April 4 I hosted a webinar to answer questions about building a customer-focused culture. The goal was to help customer service leaders identify ways to implement concepts from The Service Culture Handbook. 

We had a nice discussion and were able to tackle a lot of great questions. You can watch the webinar below. (Click here if you don't see the video.)

Additional Resources

Here are some additional resources to go with some of the questions from the webinar.

Q: How do I get employees to buy-in to the customer service vision?

Employees are much more likely to buy-in to the vision if they get a chance to help create it. Here's a step-by-step guide that explains the process I like to use. Once you create the vision, it's imperative that employees can answer three questions about it:

1. What is the customer service vision?

2. What does it mean?

3. How do I personally contribute?

Knowing the answers to these questions moves the vision from an abstract statement to a clear and specific guide.

Q: How can you keep the customer service vision fresh?

I recommend customer service leaders chart out a communication plan to find different ways to share and reinforce the customer service vision with employees. You can use the guide on page 12 of this workbook.

Q: Should we have a separate vision for each team or department?

The short answer is not if you can avoid it! The most customer-focused organizations operate under a single customer service visions. It's okay to create a vision for your team if you don't already have one for your organization. Just beware of these dangers.

Q: Does a service culture apply to internal customer service?

Yes! The way we treat each other at work is a fundamental part of an organization's culture. It's unreasonable to expect employees to treat customers well if they feel poorly treated. Here's a blog post that explains a bit of the psychology behind that. 

Q: What are some tips for an effective customer service survey?

I've assembled several tips in this blog post. You can also view my training video on Lynda.com. You'll need a Lynda subscription, so get a 30-day trial if you don't already have an account. LinkedIn Premium subscribers can access the course here.

Q: How do we deal with customer feedback on the internet, such as Google Reviews?

Reviews on Google My Business can be a powerful way to attract new customers! Keep in mind that potential customers will read reviews about your business and decide whether or not to give your company a try. Staying active on Google My Business can also improve your business's position in search results. Whatever the platform, make sure you carefully analyze customer feedback to spot trends.

Q: How do we scale our service culture as our company is rapidly growing?

A customer service vision is essential to preserving your start-ups culture as the company starts to expand. Here's my guide to scaling your service culture.

Three Ways to Leverage Knowledge-Centered Service

A story about the tragic death of a pet hamster recently made national headlines.

Belen Aldecosea was traveling from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale last November. She wanted to bring along her pet dwarf hamster, Pebbles, which she claimed was certified by her doctor as an emotional support animal.

When a Spirit employee told Aldecosea the hamster was not allowed to board the plane, Aldecosea flushed Pebbles down the toilet in airport restroom.

She claims she did this on the advice of a Spirit employee. Spirit adamantly denies any employee told her to do this.

Here's one thing that's not in dispute: Aldecosea contacted Spirit prior to traveling and was erroneously told by another employee that the hamster was allowed.

The stakes can be high when customer service employees are asked about seldom-referenced policies or obscure problems. They need access to the right information in the right place at the right time.

Here are three ways Knowledge-Centered Service can help.

Reduce Memorization

Knowledge-Centered Service, or KCS, is a process organizations can use to capture, structure, reuse, and improve critical information used to solve problems.

Reducing memorization is one clear benefit. Here's a short experiment to highlight a common challenge:

Name all of the planets in our solar system in order from closet to the sun to farthest.

Many of us will struggle to recall the first eight. There's controversy by the time we get to Pluto. Is it a planet or not? NASA's website is surprisingly unhelpful when it comes to settling this question.

We need clear, reliable information that's easy to find in situations like this.

One client of mine struggled to get employees to remember a three-step procedure for greeting office visitors via a security intercom system. They tried team meetings, emails, and written memos but nothing worked.

The solution was putting the right information in the right place at the right time. My client hung a sign next to the intercom with the three steps. Problem solved.

Another client struggled to get employees to remember complex technical information about the medical devices it sold. The solution was creating a single page with links to information sheets for each product so employees could quickly and accurately answer customer questions without memorizing the answers.

Shorten Training

If you're old enough, you grew up during a time when you memorized all of your friends' phone numbers.

Today, I can barely remember my own phone number. Important information about our friends such as phone numbers, birthdates, and addresses are all safely stored in our smart phones. 

It's a phenomenon called digital amnesia where we've become less adept at memorizing information.

That makes training much more difficult since traditional training often revolves around getting participants to memorize facts, procedures, and other information.

KCS can help solve that. Rather than memorizing piles of information, participants are taught to use a knowledge base to identify known solutions to problems. I've helped clients cut new hire training time by as much as 50 percent by switching from a memorization-focused training regime to a KCS approach.

The best part happens when new information is introduced.

Let's say your company releases a new product. You can do a short hands-on training meeting with the new product and capture everyone's questions into a searchable frequently asked questions (FAQ) document that anyone can access. 

Now your team can quickly recall what they learned about the new product and sound like an authority when answering questions just by accessing the FAQ. That FAQ can be updated and corrected as new insights are gained or you receive feedback from customers.

Improve Self-Service

Good self-service often runs on information, which means that self-service can fail when that information isn't readily available.

For example, some airlines allow passengers to book free stopovers. This is essentially an extra long layover that allows you to visit one city and then continue to another hours or even days later for the price of one ticket. 

Here's what happens when I search the Spirit Airlines website for information on stopovers. (Yes, I added the space on purpose.) 

Nothing useful here, not even a clear "we don't allow stopovers" policy. This will probably prompt a call to customer service if I wanted to find the answer.

A best practice is to routinely track what customers are searching for. So if you notice a lot of customers are searching for "stopover," "stop over," or even "layover" you can add a helpful resource that appears when a customer searches any of those terms.

Many customer service software providers have created an interim solution to help customers locate self-service. The Zendesk Answer Bot scans customer emails and intuitively suggests solutions before the customer hits send.

Conclusion

The principles around KCS have been around for a long time. I was first introduced to them 20 years ago and have seen first-hand how important knowledge is in the world of customer service.

You can read an overview of the KCS methodology here if you'd like to explore the topic further.

Why Great Self-Service is Backed by Humans

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Self-service technology is everywhere these days.

In Champaign, Illinois, you can go to the public library and check out a book from a self-service kiosk. Interacting with a human is entirely optional.

Library assistant Ruairi McEnroe explained, "We have self-checkout kiosks at the library where customers can checkout, make payments (using credit cards), and check their account status without the need for a staff person."

This is a win-win for both customers and the library. Customers can avoid waiting in line and are often able to check-out faster using the kiosk. The library is able to save money in an era where many libraries face chronic funding shortfalls.

That doesn't mean humans aren't needed. Great self-service is almost always backed by capable humans.

Ruairi McEnroe assists a customer at the Champaign Public Library.

Nobody Likes to Wait

Think of all the places where self-service helps us avoid a line.

We use the Starbucks app to order our coffee ahead of time. Airlines allow us to check in and display our boarding pass on a smart phone. Even the grocery store may soon eliminate checkout lines with the advent of Amazon Go.

Nick Francis, CEO of the customer service software company, HelpScout, told me he initially struggled with the idea of offering self-service.

"I felt like we wanted to provide the greatest personalized service, but at some point, that's actually quite inconvenient."

Over time, he realized self-service was an essential customer benefit. Customers didn't like the hassle of waiting on hold to talk to a person for something simple like answering a basic product question, tracking a shipment, or resetting a password.

The realization that self-service can often be a better experience prompted Francis and his team at HelpScout to develop some really good self-service tools. HelpScout and other customer service software companies now strive to make self-service as convenient and accessible as possible.

That doesn't mean humans are no longer needed. McEnroe told me that humans serve as a sort of service lifeline at the library in Champaign.

"Generally there is one staff member on hand to clear up account issues, take cash payments, or direct customers to the area they desire. We are often now able to help customers a lot more rather than having to send them to a different desk. There are customers who would rather have a person check them out, so we can also do that.”

Where Humans Are Essential to Self-Service

There are several places where humans are the key to great self-service.

Escalations

Kiosks at the airport, the grocery store, and other places often have a customer service representative standing by. These reps can dramatically improve the self-service experience when they are properly trained.

That's because self-service doesn't always work as intended. Sometimes it can get confusing while other issues can't be solved without a customer service professional.

The 2017 Customer Service Barometer published by American Express and Ebiquity revealed that just 23 percent of customers prefer to speak to a person over the phone or face-to-face for simple issues, like checking an account balance. 

That number jumps to 63 percent for difficult issues, such as disputing a charge.

Updates

Information drives a significant amount of self service.

For instance, let's say you're shopping for a pair of running shoes online. You spot a new model from one of your favorite brands and are about to order them in your normal size when you spot a helpful note suggesting you order a half-size larger.

You make the sizing adjustment, order the shoes, and they arrive a few days later. The shoes fit perfectly and you're very happy.

Think about what went into that experience. The retailer or shoe company had to collect sizing feedback from customers and then share that insight in a meaningful way to help guide other customers like you. If the sizing information had been wrong or out of date, you would have ordered the shoes in a different size and you would have been disappointed with the fit.

Humans are the key to identifying those insights and keeping self-service functioning.

Fixes

Self-service sometimes breaks or fails to work as intended. 

Snack vending machines are terrific until your bag of chips gets stuck. It just sits there, suspended on the rack, taunting you. This is exactly when you need a human to fix a self-service fail.

Some failures aren't so obvious. A customer might search a knowledgebase for a solution, fail to find it, and then contact customer service. The customer service rep might never know about the customer's failed attempt or the 100 more customers who experience the same issue.

In The Effortless Experience, authors Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick DeLisi detail a helpful exercise to help identify and fix broken self-service experiences.

It consists of three simple steps for customer service reps to follow:

1. Identify customer issues that could have been solved via self-service.

2. Tactfully ask customers if they tried self-service.

3. Note any feedback about unsuccessful self-service attempts.

This information can then be collected so broken self-service systems can be fixed.

Lessons From the Overlook: Beware of Easy Money

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a monthly update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

You'd probably listen if someone offered to put an extra $5,000 in your pocket.

My wife, Sally, and I use Idyllwild Vacation Cabins to manage The Overlook. I recently received a letter from one of its competitors offering us a guaranteed $5,000 in net income during our first year if we switched.

The competitor has about the same number of rental properties under management in Idyllwild. It is also a much larger company with more resources. The kind of resources that allow them to pay $5,000 customer acquisition fees.

Should we make the switch to the new property manager? Our decision was pretty easy. We never even hesitated for a second. Nope!

Here's why you need to beware of easy money.

Our property manager keeps the shaded deck clean and inviting.

How Magazines Derailed a Catalog

Twenty years ago, I supervised the call center training team for a retail catalog company. This was back in the days when the majority of customers called in to place an order.

Our vice president of customer service one day announced a partnership with a magazine subscription company. It was an elaborate scheme that would require our call center agents to offer free trial magazine subscriptions to customers at the end of each sales call. 

It seemed like an odd fit for an apparel catalog, but our vice president was chasing easy money. The magazine company would pay a fee that could cover the cost of each phone call if we met certain performance targets for new subscriptions.

This happened during a rough period for the company and the vice president was under pressure to cut costs and turn things around. Service wasn't great, sales were flagging, and the company refused to invest in e-commerce at a time when online shopping was starting to take off.

The magazine money seemed like an easy fix. In reality, it took resources away from the training, monitoring, coaching, and other activities the company needed to improve the sales and service experience. The magazines also did nothing to address the chronic operational issues that had been plaguing the company for years.

Things eventually got worse as the company continued losing money.

Do Your Homework

There's almost always a downside to easy money.

Sally and I contacted several property management companies when we first bought The Overlook. Our goal was to set up interviews with the local property manager as part of our vetting process. The local manager for the company that sent us the $5,000 offer never returned our call.

It's easy to imagine the headaches that would come with that one-time $5,000 bonus. Decreased guest satisfaction, increased maintenance issues, and plenty of headaches all seem likely. Something tells me we would lose a lot more than we would gain over the long run.

Sticking with our property manager was an easy decision.

Idyllwild Vacation Cabins takes great care of our guests and does a terrific job looking after our cabin. Communication is incredibly responsive and we've built a strong working relationship.

Those are the things that are most important to us and we know that other company can't provide them.