Nothing kills motivation like monotony

Nothing kills motivation like monotony 

I spent this past weekend winter camping with my Venture Company (2nd Nashwaaksis Venturers). The main activity that we had for the weekend was to complete the planning for our upcoming adventure race (The Nine Toe Winter Run). The race is a 5 hour orienteering race, on snowshoes. Our task this weekend was to complete a run through of the advanced course.

The advanced course is designed so that we could complete it at a fast hike, knowing where the checkpoints are located, within 7 hours. That would give us a course distance that should be appropriate for a fast racer with good navigation skills to complete it in 5 hours.

We started hiking the course at 5pm on Saturday evening. The first couple of hours were easy going and we didn't have any motivation problems. As the hours started dragging on, and as the kilometers started racking up, the team's motivations started to wain. The mental stress of doing nothing, but putting one foot in front of the other, was too much. It was turning from a nice night hike into a looooong walk.

We came to a crossroads where we had a choice, take a longer detour and follow a highway back to our camp or bushwhack on a direct route. Many of the guys wanted to take the highway because it was predicable and easier. However, we convinced them to do the bushwhacking instead. It was a quicker route and it would be more interesting. A 10km detour on the highway sounded like a death march.

As it turns out, the first part of this bushwhack was very hard. The bush was thick and the woods were pitch black. We were literally crawling through some of the bush.

The interesting thing about this was the effect that it had on moral. Instead of dragging their feet and complaining, the guys were stoked. We were yelling and laughing and charging through the underbrush like madmen. We were faster in that brutal section than we were in any of the actual trail sections. We ended the hike invigorated ...but slept well!

Whether in the bush or at a desk, the best motivation is a challenging task.

Question: What strategies have you used for motivating people?

Celebrate publicly, challenge privately

The tenet "Celebrate publicly, challenge privately" speaks succinctly to the vision of what I want this blog to be.

I was reading a blog post over at timpeters.org about influencing people. [Interesting piece.] A quote at the bottom of the article reads, "Celebrate publicly, challenge privately". I had never heard the quote before but it struck me as salient. The context of Tim's usage of the quote was around gaining influence with authority figures but I think that it is more generally a useful concept.

This tenet speaks succinctly to the vision of what I want this blog will be. I started this blog because of a good service story. I think that it is important to publicly celebrate good service and good corporate citizens. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I don't think it is usually helpful to publicly humiliate or bash a company for specific issues. Every business has issues, the key is to give helpful criticism and encourage them to change.

What if giving pleasant, constructive feedback doesn't work? There are many stories about companies needing to be shamed into good behavior. Dave Caroll and his United Breaks Guitars song is an excellent example of this. Unfortunately, not all companies make the right decisions about customer service. With Twitter, YouTube and the many social media outlets available, the story will get out.

I have been intentionally vague about the specific businesses when criticizing bad service experiences but I do try to go back directly to give my feedback. I have likewise been intentional in my public positive feedback. I will continue to keep this soft approach where I can.

What do you think? Is "Celebrate publicly, challenge privately" the right track? Or, is shaming the right tactic?

Feedback is gold...if you receive it.

Getting bad feedback sucks. Not getting the bad feedback is worse.

Recently I had a meal at a local restaurant. The restaurant has a great reputation, has won awards, has had articles written about it and everyone talks about it. I have eaten their previously with good success.

Yesterday, however, my meal was substandard. My Wild Mushroom Risotto was bland, over-cooked and the portion was too small. I'm not looking for a mammoth, over-consumption-sized meal but I would like to not have to eat a sandwich after my meal. I'm not looking for gourmet but this place is supposed to be pretty high caliber, in our little city.

Did I complain to the server, no. I was with a client and didn't want to create a scene over something as simple as over cooked rice. I wanted to keep the focus of the meal on the client, instead of my plate of mush.

The problem is, the restaurant now has no idea that a customer has gone away unimpressed. This is the worst case scenario for a business.

As a business, I want to know when my customers aren't impressed. I want to know if our service was slow, sloppy or expensive. I want to, at least, apologize for the inadequacy if I can't rectify it. I want to prevent it from happening again.

It isn't always best to complain at the moment that the bad service is happening. However, take the time after-the-fact to jot down your experience or pick up the phone and call about it. If the owner has an appreciation for the importance of service, they will appreciate the feedback.

If you are a business owner, embrace negative comments as a way to improve. Realize that the act of complaining might have been uncomfortable for the client and they probably had a good reason for making it.

DIY is not a four letter word

Sometimes people want to do things themselves.

As I've previously described, I am in the middle of a bathroom renovation. Doing this project myself is not a rational decision. I am much less skilled than a professional, it will take me infinitely longer and it the cost in the end will probably be comparable to hiring a pro.

On a recent hardware store visit, I was dealing with [another] tricky plumbing problem. Old lead pipe welded to a brass fitting that needs to connect to my bathtub drain in a short space.

I described my situation to the sales person at the first store. They responded, "You can't do this yourself. Call a plumber". This is sound advice. However, it completely misses the point. I came to a DIY store specifically so that I could try this myself. Of course I would call a plumber if I couldn't figure it out in the end but this seemed like a reasonable problem to attempt.

The next store took a different approach. The sales woman listened to my problem, told me that "it might be tricky" but offered a few suggestions to try and some pieces that might fit my puzzle.

It worked...although it was tricky and it was time consuming.

In the IT business I see this all of the time. Customers want to do certain aspects of their IT services themselves. You can try to sell the benefits of using professional services but in the end it is their cost versus benefit analysis. Sometimes the best deal is to be there in a supporting role. "Try it yourself and if you get into trouble give us a call."

If our house only had a single bathroom I would have called in the professionals from the start because my tolerance for "outages" would be much smaller. The same goes in others fields. If customers can tolerate slower recovery, more effort or (possibly) less professional results, it might make sense to do it themselves. When they decide that they are done messing around with the problem themselves, and if we have been supportive along the way, maybe we will win that business.

Local charity - Good causes and good marketing

People remember the good things that your business does. 

Giant Tiger #170 (Union St. Fredericton)

I was at a meeting last night and we were talking about buying food and supplies for an upcoming event. Someone at the table immediately piped up and said, "Giant Tiger will have all of that. Wayne is always good to us. Let's just go there."

Wayne Gallant is the manager of one of the Giant Tiger stores in Fredericton. (He also happens to be a close friend of mine and teammates in our adventure racing team, Team Bulletproof.)

One of the things that I find truly great about Giant Tiger (and specifically Wayne's store) is how much they give to the community. Hardly a week goes by where there isn't an announcement about a sponsorship or some other charity event that they are helping with.

For those of you not familiar, Giant Tiger (GT) is a Canadian discount store chain. Their specialty is rock bottom pricing. My expectation of a discount store, and it is probably common, would be that they need to keep costs to an absolute minimum and that things like community involvement would come a distant second. That doesn't seem to be the case with Giant Tiger. And it seems to be working for them.

Wayne has garnered a great deal of loyalty with the people that he supports. His support ranges from the IWK, Liberty Lane, local schools, Scouts and Girl Guides to a variety of sporting events like bike and running races. People who participate in these causes and events really appreciate his efforts and many pay it back in the form of loyalty to his store.

On the Giant Tiger website they state that they have "A progressive, value-oriented, no-nonsense approach to retailing." More companies should share these values. It pays off for the community and for the company. 

4 ways to do better problem escalation and transfers

Everyone can recount a story of calling some service provider and being bounced from department to department, agent to agent, and inevitably being hung-up on mid-transfer. 

One of the biggest pain points that I see in service oriented companies is problem improper escalation. A problem comes in, the person receiving it is busy, doesn't know exactly how to deal with it or just doesn't care enough. So, they simply forward the problem on to the next person they can think of.

Deflection is easy to justify in your mind. I am too busy, someone else probably has more time to deal with this, or they will be better equipped to handle this. Forward.

This causes two main pain points, first, it obviously causes extra delay to the customer, usually unnecessarily.   Secondly, it causes the next person in the chain annoyance. They might know that you could have handled the issue just as well as they can but you chose not to.

Unnecessary escalations are a major issue in customer and staff satisfaction.

How do we deal with this problem?

1. Ask yourself truthfully before forwarding the problem, is there anything I can do to resolve this myself?
2. When you do need to forward a problem, clearly explain to the recipient why you had to forward the problem and specifically what you have done. The last thing you want is for them to have to repeat any steps you have already done. 
3. Explain to the customer, clearly, why you are transferring them. "I'm sorry but I really think that [insert name here] would be better suited to work on this issue." 
4. If possible, do a soft hand-off of the customer. Join the recipient into the conversation before transferring. "Hello Jon, I have Mary on the phone. She is having this problem. Can you help?"

Customers understand that different people have different expertise. What they won't forgive is a blind circle of transfers. Co-workers understand that some problems require escalation. What they won't forgive is unnecessary transfers.

Turning customer demands into personal expectations

Most of us have customers that we consider "difficult". We use all sorts of adjectives to describe them. 

If you set aside personality differences (since we can't change those), difficult customers are often described with phrases like:

• "They expect to much for what they are paying."
• "They are never happy with us."
• "Everything has to be done yesterday for them."
• "All they do it point fingers." 

Customers are always going to fight for the best, fastest and cheapest. Some customers have personalities that make them more forceful and demanding. They often end up being seen as the "difficult" ones.

Given this, when we hear or say a comments like these about a customer, step back and consider; How can I turn that into a service goal rather than taking it as a personal attack? Perhaps they are being difficult in the way that they are interacting with you but there is probably some validity to their complaint.

Ask yourself these types of questions instead:

• How can I give better value?
• How can I improve my service standards?
• How can we improve our response or turn around time?
• How can I be more accountable for our service?

Remind yourself that the [insert expletive descriptor here] might be demanding, but there is probably something to what he is saying.