Tag Archives: Customer Communication

A Don Doesn’t Wear Shorts.

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I loved the HBO show, The Sopranos.  I’m a bit of a Mafia aficionado; I’ve been fascinated with that culture ever since my grandmother (!) gave me a book by Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno to read when I was 16.  In an early episode of The Sopranos, James Gandolfini, playing Tony Soprano (the main character and the leader or “Don” of the Soprano mob) was hosting a barbecue in his back yard for other mobsters.  Tony manned the grill while wearing Bermuda shorts, and this prompted a visit the next week.

As Gandolfini told the story, at a shoot the next week on location in New Jersey, he was approached by a man that was obviously a real-deal mobster.  The man walked up to Gandolfini and said that he loved the show, “But Jimmy,” the man said, looking dead into James’ eyes, “Dons don’t wear shorts.”  Gandolfini took it to heart, and Tony Soprano never wore shorts again in a Mob gathering.  In fact, this became part of a Sopranos episode later when Tony was reproached by a boss for the shorts.  What the mobster meant, of course, is that when you have that kind of a leadership position, you can’t afford to look too casual to those that you are supposed to be leading.  It’s a lesson that’s often forgotten.

I thought about this recently when watching a Zoom sales meeting.  Zoom has been a great tool that has enhanced the capabilities of managers and sales reps alike – but it’s also, in my opinion, contributed to a loosening of standards that isn’t healthy for sales managers or salespeople.  In this meeting, the sales manager had 20 sales reps on the line, all were ready and able to hear what he had to say.

The problem was that the manager, attempting to be too cute by half, had employed one of those digital backgrounds on his screen.  Those backgrounds suck up bandwidth, so instead of being a clear communicator, his image was pixelating, his voice was cutting in and out, and he was virtually unwatchable.  In fact, the only clearly visible image was the background itself, and when the manager attempted to share his PowerPoint presentation on his screen, the entire screen locked up.  What ensued was ten minutes of the manager attempting to get rid of the background, then logging off, and finally being able to get back onto the meeting – by which point he had lost his audience, in attention of not reality.

The manager forgot that Dons don’t wear shorts.  He had important information to convey, but lost his chance to make it impactful because he was trying to take a too-cool, too-casual approach to the meeting.  How often have you seen this since last year?  I’ve experienced it myself, many times.  During a Hiring Assistance program, there was the guy who logged onto a Zoom job interview for a sales position (he was the applicant) in a T-shirt and ball cap, for example.

Video calling is here to stay.  I do not expect it to replace face-to-face selling (we human beings crave actual human contact), but the skills and technology will be part of our repertoire going forward, so we might as well do it right.  The key to remember is that Zoom is merely another way to communicate messages – and your message should be the star, not the tech!  Whether you’re a manager addressing your team, or a salesperson making a sales presentation, there are a few fundamental best practices you should employ:

  1. Forget the silly backgrounds. Yes, these platforms allow you to use a lot of cool backgrounds.  When you use one, in many cases, the background itself becomes the star and you’re just in the way – or worse, the background eats up your bandwidth.  Stick with a stationary background.  Even a blank wall is fine, or your office, or whatever.  If you want your company branding in it, make up a banner for a backdrop and use it, but the background should be a physical background and not an electronic one.
  2. Dress like a pro. Casualness is the enemy of persuasion; when you are presenting, you should look and dress the part.  Dress and prep the same as you would for a live meeting or sales call.
  3. Get the camera at eye level. Looking down at the screen makes you look amateurish – whether you’re using a phone or a laptop, position it so that you are looking directly into the camera lens while looking straight ahead.
  4. Look into the camera lens, not the screen. This is the hardest to master, but very important.  When you’re speaking, you should be looking at the camera lens – that means that you’re making eye contact with your recipient.  Peripheral vision is a wonderful thing; you can always see their movements and expressions out of the corner of your eye even when you’re looking at the lens.
  5. Get good sound. If they can’t hear you, they can’t buy from you.  Make sure that you have a good microphone setup, if your device doesn’t already have a good microphone.  Lavaliere or USB microphones are less than $100, which is a cheap investment.
  6. The best way to get good at anything is to practice, and presentations are no different.  Practice, practice, practice, until you know the tech, you know how to quickly share your screen without fumbling, and you are able to handle all other aspects of the technological platform you’re using.

Remember – you want your video presentation to be just as professional as, if not more so than, your live presentation.  Dons don’t wear shorts.  Be a Don.

When It Comes to Service, Don’t Put on the Ritz – 7 Ways to Improve Your Customer Experience

The Navigator News,

When It Comes to Service, Don’t Put on the Ritz – 7 Ways to Improve Your Customer Experience

In my experience, most customer service training is about “conflict resolution,” when in fact, it should be “conflict avoidance.” Many customer service issues – and the attendant harm to your customers’ experience with you – don’t have to happen. I was reminded of this when I decided to have a snack.

I love Ritz crackers. Well, at least I used to. For the past few years, I’ve noticed that far too many Ritz crackers turn into crumbs as soon as you open the package. I threw away a new box yesterday because I opened all four sleeves, and it was impossible to remove an intact cracker from the package. Although I’ve seen this a lot, and I decided to do a little research. My research, quickly, found that thousands of other people had posted about the same thing.7 Ways to Improve Your Customer Service

On their Facebook page, there is a thread that is six years, and over a thousand comments, old, of people reporting the same issue. Here’s the funny part. Someone at Ritz took the time to respond to every post. They said (paraphrasing; not all responses were identical in words but they were in sentiment):

“We’re sorry this happened to you. Please send us a private message with the batch number and the store where you bought the crackers so we can investigate.” Thousands of times, thousands of comments, and this was the response – essentially, pretending that it’s an isolated problem with just a few affected boxes, when in reality this is pretty much a systemic problem.

What’s happening is that someone at RJR Nabisco has decided that they have two options: First, they can figure out why this is happening now and didn’t before and fix the problem, or they can train some entry-level employee to type out rote responses every time someone claims, knowing people will continue to buy the crackers because of the brand. They have chosen option number two.

This syndrome isn’t just confined to big corporations, either. I see small and medium sized companies doing the same thing every day. Don’t do that. If you have a recurring problem, here are the steps you need to take:

  1. Be honest. Is this a real problem? In other words, is what the customers are experiencing a genuine problem with the product or customer service, or an isolated incident? If it’s happening consistently and repeatedly, it’s not an isolated incident. It’s like the person who has been married seven times – at some point, you have to admit that it’s not them; it’s you.
  2. Embrace transparency. You must realize that, whatever the problem is, it’s going to get out. That’s one of the ways that social media has changed the world. The old saying used to be, “If you do something good for someone, they’ll tell one person. If you do something bad TO someone, they’ll tell ten people.” Now, either way, they have the capability to tell the entire world. Ritz’s customer service person i
    s responding to those customer complaints as if they were communicating one-on-one. You have to recognize that not only will the PROBLEM get out – how you HANDLE the problem will get out.
  3. Why is the problem actually happening? Is it traceable to a human error (most are), a product or raw material error, a process error, or a customer error? Nearly every ‘service’ issue is traceable to one of those things.
  4. Fix it. Human errors or customer errors are fairly easily fixable by training and setting expectations; processes can be rewritten, and product or raw material errors can be addressed – but first, you have to know what they are.
  5. Individualize your communication. One of the aspects of this that really upset customers on the Ritz page was that, not only was Ritz pretending that these were isolated instances (hundreds of times over), they were giving the same rote response and not responding to individualized queries. When customers ask questions, answer THEIR question – not everyone else’s – and respect THEIR situation. Yes, you might be communicating with the entire world (see #2 above), but you’re still dealing with THEIR problem.
  6. Set customer expectations. Too often, customers are blamed for expecting “too much” of a product or service, when in fact, it was the seller who set that expectation in the first place. I once worked in an industry as a sales manager where our service manager said, “It’s your salespeoples’ jobs to sell fantasy; my job is to sell reality.” In other words, my team was supposed to paint an unrealistic picture of what the result would be, get a contract signed, and then turn them over to service, who would reset their expectations. Not surprisingly, customers weren’t delighted with this approach, and I left that industry not long after that conversation. If your sales or marketing is painting an unrealistic picture, you need to fix THAT – false expectations will damage your business far more than losing a few deals because someone else is “selling a fantasy.”
  7. Make it right. Find a way to make the customer “whole” again. This can be done any number of ways, but the worst way is to give them more of a flawed product. I’m thinking of the airlines who, upon delaying you for hours and messing up your plans, give you a voucher for more flying. Or Ritz, who offered to send a replacement box of crackers.

If you know you have a problem, you need to either fix it or acknowledge the problem BEFORE the customer buys, so they can make an educated decision about whether or not to buy.

In the case of my beloved Ritz crackers, all I want is something I can put cheese or peanut butter on. After reading that thread on Facebook (and throwing away many, many bad crackers over the last couple of years), I’ve decided to switch to a different cracker that holds together. Will I go back? Probably not. If you have a problem, don’t acknowledge or fix it, and your customer finds out, they probably won’t, either.