Being good is not good enough anymore. Being mediocre is even worse. Being great makes or breaks companies. Customers can get anything from anywhere. How people are treated from the moment they walk into the doors of a business, visit their website, or contact a call center determines how much money they will spend.
Every company has a slogan or tagline touting how much they care about customers. Interestingly enough, that commitment to the customer is usually tacked up on the break room wall and touted with little importance. Saying you care about your customers won't win you any special points. Showing them you do is what brings in the money.
Customer service needs a lot of work. Frankly, customer service sucks. Corporate culture sucks. Both are designed to favor the companies themselves, not the hard working employees who make it all happen or the customers who keep them in business.
It hasn't always been perfect, but today's standards are far from what we expect or deserve. They are, at best, just good. It is time to raise the bar and take the treatment of customers from good to great! Can we reverse the negative corporate cultures that have crept into the business world? Can we implement practices that tell customers we value them and want them to return?
We can, and we must.
Bryan has been a successful financial services manager for the past 16 years within the retail banking and automotive industries. He is a graduate of the world's foremost customer service development programs, including the Ritz Carlton Institute and the Disney Institute. This means Bryan has learned from the best of the best, and has taken those strategies to revolutionize customer experience and corporate culture. Bryan began his career in 2003 as a manager for a local religious bookstore. From there, he has directed organizations large and small, being an advocate for both the customer and the employee. As a financial services manager, Bryan changed the local banking industry with a "relationship first" approach to increasing sales. He has won several prestigious corporate customer service awards from leading financial institutions. Bryan believes it is the perceived failures of life that lead to profound reinvention. Despite being college-educated and graduating at the top of his class, Bryan had some very difficult hands dealt him. He was terminated from a Utah banking institution shortly before Christmas on the grounds of being homeless, believing he could not be trusted around money. Addicted to alcohol and on the verge of suicide, it was this experience that drove Bryan to completely redefine his purpose in life, finding the motivation to rise out of some very dark times. While at this lowest point, desperate and with little money, he took a leap of faith and wrote The Customer Service Revolution: 8 Principles That Will Change the Way Companies Think About the Customer Experience and the Employees Who Work For Them and now has authored Get Your Stuff and Get Out! Why Customer Service Sucks and How We Can Make It Great Again! He founded CX Solutions, a customer experience consulting firm which passionately teaches the level of service given to customers is a reflection of the service rendered upon employees.
