Customer Service is Not a Department via Change This

Customer Service is Not a Department: Realy? 

It’s also not a complaint desk, or a website, or a phone number, or an option on a phone menu. Nor is it a task or a chore. It’s the responsibility of everyone in the organization, from the CEO to the lowest-ranking front line employee. In effect, everyone in the company is a customer service rep, because each of them has some impact on the customer’s experience.

As an executive, you may never see or speak to a customer, but you model how they should be treated with every interaction you have, with vendors, creditors, suppliers, and especially your employees. Treat everyone with sincerity and respect and it will trickle down to your customers.

For more insights check out Change This

Why You Need an Empty Chair at Important Meetings

Why You Need an Empty Chair at Important Meetings:

It’s widely known that Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, frequently leaves one open seat at the company’s most important meetings. It’s there to remind his fellow executives and managers of the most important person in the room—the customer.

Forbes reports that Amazon tracks its performance against five hundred measurable goals. Nearly 80 percent relate to customer objectives.
But if the people at the meeting don’t have cultural intelligence, it’s unlikely the chair will be of much benefit. The participants will simply assume the person represented by the empty chair values what they do. And if everyone in the meeting comes from the same cultural background, it’s going to be tough to get a grasp of preferences and opinions of the customer.
So go ahead and add an empty chair to your most important meetings. But don’t stop with that. To make the most of this creative practice, follow these “empty chair” guidelines:
1. Break the Golden Rule: Remind everyone in the meeting that their own values and perspectives can’t be applied to all customers. Treating everyone with kindness and respect is an aspect of the Golden Rule we can all embrace. But there are a thousand different interpretations of what kindness and respect look like, largely shaped by one’s cultural background. It’s an elementary point, but one that is quickly forgotten: Don’t assume everyone wants what you want.
2. Focus: Most of our organizations aren’t trying to become the earth’s largest retail machine (a.k.a. Amazon). So who is the primary target related to today’s conversation? Who isn’t? How much do you know about them? The days of mass marketing are long over. Every choice is a renunciation. To focus on one type of customer is to renounce a thousand others. What are the specific needs and desires of this target audience and how will today’s agenda address those?
3. Perspective-Taking: The empty chair assumes people in the meeting are adept at perspective-taking: the ability to step outside their own experience and imagine the perceptions and motivations of another. This means being able to predict:

• What does our customer (or prospective customer) value?
• What’s going on in her mind?
• What would she say about the ideas we’re discussing right now?

As you improve CQ Knowledge—an understanding of how culture influences the way people think and behave—your team can more accurately predict the perspective of culturally diverse customers. And this understanding needs to be based upon empirical research. Avoid letting meeting participants describe the behaviors of all teenagers based upon their child’s behavior or declaring what Indian women think based upon what their friend is like. What does research reveal about the dominant norms among these various subcultures?
4. Adjust Perspectives: Make this a dynamic, ongoing process. Based upon further observations, emerging trends, and real-life interactions with customers, move beyond broad assumptions to more specific insights about your target group. Norms about Hispanic men, Chinese-American women, or millennials provide a good hypothesis for predicting what these customers will want. But be open to adapting those insights.  And find ways to fill the chair with live customers from time-to-time to get their first hand input.
The obsession to understand the customer gives Amazon the confidence to innovate freely without fretting about short-term results. Bezos says. “We don’t focus on the optics of the next quarter; we focus on what is going to be good for customers.”
Without cultural intelligence, there’s little benefit from adopting this Amazon practice. But an empty chair + cultural intelligence is a smart, strategic way to keep your meetings focused on the most important people your organization exists to serve.

The Kenyan connection to the Boston Marathon via Gary Cymbaluck

The Kenyan connection to the Boston Marathon.:

Kenyan Rita Jeptoo reacts after crossing the finish line

From the Christian Science Monitor:

When it comes to the modern Boston Marathon, no country has closer ties to "Beantown" than Kenya. Since 1988, Kenyans have won the men's race 20 times and the women's race 10, gracefully loping across the Boylston Street finish line in what now seems a nearly automatic "first" for the East African country.

So it is not surprising in wake of Monday's unsolved bombings that the Kenyan public is slightly shocked, but also that Kenyan athletes and runners have rallied. In emotional statements and press events, the marathoner community here is urging unity against the attacks, and calling for participation in London's upcoming marathon as a protest on behalf of the human spirit.

“I urge all athletes to go to London with confidence. They should not fear. Sports are more powerful," said Paul Tergat, who held the marathon world record between 2003 and 2007.

Mr. Tergat told Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper that runners should not be intimidated and said the London marathon on Sunday should be turned into a display of the power of sports and its unifying factor. "Let’s pull together and shame the people who targeted innocent fans in Boston."
In Kenya, as has become traditional on the third Monday of April, citizens were glued to the television, keenly following and cheering the race as marathoners went down familiar grass-lined suburban streets before reaching the downtown finish line.

This year's defending men's champion, Kenyan Welsey Korir – now a member of Parliament – placed fifth in the race, while another Kenyan, Micah Kogo, came second.

Kenya's Rita Cheptoo took first in the women's race, her second victory since 2006, and celebrations broke out in Eldoret town, the hub of Kenya’s long distance running.

Nearly three hours later, after Ms. Cheptoo had left the scene, two explosions close to the finish line killed three people and injured 140 more.

“It is very sad some people decided to attack the world’s oldest marathon. We condemn the act," says James Kattam, Ms. Cheptoo's coach at the administrative police unit athletics team. "However, this is unlikely dampen our running spirit because Kenyans love athletics.”

David Leting, Kenya's national marathon coach, added that, “there is some fear among some of our athletes … but I want to assure all that we shall participate in all marathons as we have done before. We have already also been assured of security.”

He was referring to the London marathon set for next Sunday, which race organizers have said will take place despite the attacks in Boston.

The attacks have reminded us that we should give special interest to security during future international marathons, says Douglas Wakiihuri, the first Kenyan marathoner to win the world championship, in 1987.

“We never stopped competing and I would like to urge all runners not to panic [but] they should also remain very cautious about their security,” says Mr. Wakiihuri, who now mentors young athletes.