The Power of Customer Service | Francis Flair

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Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Noble, Oklahoma, just south of Norman there. I think you're still in Cleveland County, but thank you for listening. Joining me today is Frances Flair of Flair Consulting Group. Welcome to the show, Francis.

Thank you, Christian. It's a pleasure to be here.

So let's start out with like your CV, your bona fides. What is Flare Consulting Group and who is Francis?

So Flare Consulting Group, we help scaling businesses, service-based businesses build client retention systems by building clear, actionable systems that is repeatable and be able to keep clients. Because we believe that for every client that you keep, every client that you keep, it's you beating the competition. So for every client that you keep, you beat the competition. Because a lot of the times most leaders and entrepreneurs think your competition is the one in your industry. Like, well, if I asked you, or if someone asked me, I'm thinking about the next consulting firm who is probably adjacent or parallel to what we do. But the real competition is that your customers, your clients are interacting with other businesses when they are not with you. And those are your competition because they are always wondering and thinking to themselves, well, why don't XYZ treat me like that? Because they can do it. And a good example of that is Amazon. Amazon came and broke all the rules. Now, when you interact with a business and they cannot get your shipping to you in less than 24 hours or 24 hours, it's like there's something wrong, right? So they wrote a script for everyone and that's kind of the competition. And so yes, that's what we do. Me personally, I, if you can tell from my exotic accent, I come from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Well, I'm kidding. Of course you do. So I was born in Ghana, raised in Ghana, West Africa, grew up in an orphanage there, and I had a dream to go to college in the US. Had no idea how that was going to be possible. And so there was an American missionary at the orphanage who said, sure, you know, I mean, how are you going to be able to afford it? But what he told me, which I took with me until today, is that, well, if you do what you are supposed to do, if you do your part, then we'll see what God will do. Like, but you still have to take care of your, your part. Like, you have to do your part, which is me going to school, getting serious with my studies, and making sure that I, I, I get good grades. And so, long story short, um, we were blessed Oklahoma Christian in Edmond gave me a scholarship to come and study, being the first kid from the orphanage to be able to do that. And so that's how I ended up in the US. So graduated from Oklahoma Christian, went to OSU to do my graduate degree in leadership and entrepreneurship. I wanted to go on and help healthcare, like work in healthcare. I thought to myself, I was going to be a CEO of a health system one day. But then when I graduated, uh, it was hard to find a job because, um, all, um, companies I applied for were like, well, you need healthcare experience. And I couldn't fathom why, um, that was the challenge because I had a master's degree and like the programs always tell you, oh yeah, you're going to get a job once you are done, you know, and That didn't happen that way. And this, I had moved to Florida. So this time I was back in Tulsa because there was a capstone portion and this was back in 2019. And so in my frustration, like one time I drove to Houston and back just for an interview and it didn't work out. And from that frustration, I was like, well, I already had a skillset in transforming my last business, my last employer, we had built systems in how to create a great experience, to deliver that level of, uh, experience that no one can, um, really conceive for an industry in a dry cleaning industry. And so I was like, well, I mean, there are so many companies out there who could use this. I mean, if they knew how, and building a clear client retention And so that frustration from my master's degree, not being able to find a job in my area of study, then I came out with FLE Consulting Group. And so now we've been able to take this across multiple industries, higher education, medical, dry cleaning, of course, insurance agencies, I mean, all that. So any business or any companies out there who are focused on client retention, trying to use service and the experience, mechanism, that's what we help them do.

So there, there's a lot to unpack there. Uh, I don't know where to start. Let's start with, um, the frustration, because I think that's, um, part of every entrepreneur's journey is the frustration. Maybe it's with their employer, um, maybe it's with just their, the potential that they see. There's some burr under the saddle that just causes them to move forward. I think this idea that you put out there of you're your own competition, not competing against somebody else is very wise, because I think existing businesses have a tendency to lose focus of a couple of things. And, you know, one of which is, is, is looking at the marketplace and thinking that you're in competition with everybody else that does what you do. But you speak to the most important thing that we have, which is our existing client relationships. And if we don't take care of them, it's a lot more expensive and difficult to go convince somebody that isn't doing business with you to do business with you, right? So in a lot of ways, it's a cheaper allocation of your resources to put that effort into taking care of your existing clients. So what does that look like big picture? When you're in a service industry and you're— say you say, I want to make this shift from looking at the competition as my competitors and looking at the competition as myself. What does that look like big picture? Hey, listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now.

Yeah, I mean, big picture, it's really committing to the process. That is it. I mean, the reason why a lot of companies struggle with client retention is because they never committed to it and they think it's harder to do that. But it's actually easier to do that, like you mentioned, like it's cheaper. Like you can make 5 to 25 times more if you focus on like your allocation of budget in marketing and advertising. If you reinvested that back into your customer experience, you get far more better returns and then let your customers do the marketing and advertising for you. Right? No one talks about average. And so if, as a client, if I am blown away every time, I can trust you. You are consistent. And I think there is a notion here that we need to underline. Customers don't care about perfection. They know you are going to drop the ball. They know that things happen. They understand that, right? What customers care about is preparation. Yes, yes, they want to trust you that no matter what happens, you will take care of them. And that's the point where a lot of scaling businesses don't get. And on, on the front end, it appears that it's easier to spend more money to go find more clients. But when you find them, which is great, what happens then when they come in? Because you can have a great marketing, uh, project advertising, and, and this is not anything against marketing or advertising. You need to do that. What I'm saying is, if you're going to do that, make sure that you have things tightened up so when they come, they have a great experience. Your marketing matches the experience with your brand, so you don't have to go spending more just to find new ones. Yeah, the existing ones will do the marketing and advertising for you. So on a bigger picture, it's committing to it and understanding that it's, it's something that not everyone is willing to do, but that's also what gives you the leverage in the marketplace.

Why, why do you think there's a resistance to making a commitment to the process? Like what, what you're saying makes sense. What, why is it people don't make that commitment?

I think it's ignorance, ignorance in the sense that I think leaders don't understand or know the financial implications of the customer experience. I think a lot of leaders don't know the financials when it comes to, okay, what does it look like instead of investing in the client experience? What is the return on that? And I think a lot of leaders don't know and understand the output of that. So I attribute that to ignorance.

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, Like, we really dove into this whole referral thing about 3 years ago with reeducating our team. And in the sense that, like, we knew we had raving fans. We knew from the feedback of our clients that they were generally satisfied and looking at the numbers that supported that. But, you know, a bunch of accountants, they weren't real clear on how to ask for referrals, right? And so I think part of that process of the great customer experience is leveraging them for that marketing through referrals, etc., because It's, I think as a business owner, you say ignorance, and I think that's the correct term. It's not stupidity. It's that it's the, I don't see how A connects to B. Like, I don't see how having a great customer experience leads to more customers, right? That's the disconnect, I think.

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a disconnect. And you know that. And it's not ignorance in a bad way. So I guess a softer term will be lack of awareness.

I like ignorance.

I like ignorance. Yeah. Um, but I mean, if you don't know, if you don't understand, because I think, but, but I think really, in addition to that, like, the, the customer experience, it's a long game. It's a long game. It's not one that you kind of, it's easy to see the return on, right? You can't just turn it around just like that because what you're doing is building trust And ultimately loyalty, you don't buy that, you earn that. And that is a long-term agenda.

So when you— right. And so, so like foundationally, that has to be who you are, right? Yes. And, you know, you can, you can call it culture, which would be a good term, whether that's just you as a business owner Or if you have team members, either employees or contractors, like everybody agrees that that is who you are, right? Is that we're going to take care of these people. Not to your point that you're not going to make mistakes. I think it was Ritz-Carlton did a study a while ago about customer satisfaction, their customer satisfaction. And what they found was that the people that had had a problem that had had their problem solved had a higher customer satisfaction than the people that had never had a problem at all. So to your point, it's not about not screwing up. It's not even really about perfecting what you do. It's how do you handle it when something goes wrong?

Absolutely. And you are talking about a satisfaction paradox. There's a study, a research that actually shows You get higher satisfaction from a customer if you drop the ball but really, really recover like that. They never expected you to. It's like it blows their mind. And I mean, talking about the risk culture, for example, like each employee has up to like $2,000 to make a decision in the moment without that of a manager, like without consulting a manager. Like they can make, like anyone in the company can make that decision. Right. That is empowerment. And that's what it takes when you talk about culture. Like, how do you empower? Because it's— you have to equip your team. Talking about the process, the whole bigger picture, you have to equip them. And that starts with, with the leadership, like committing to the process that this is who we are and this is who we are going to become. And so this is what it's going to take. So you equip them by giving them the tools and everything that is going to require to ensure that they can do it consistently. Because it's not just doing it, but it has to become part of your identity. And then you have to empower them. After giving them the tools, you have to empower them. So equip, empower, and then elevate. You share those great stories when they come up. When someone does a good thing, someone does something that relates or that is what you are looking for, you share more of those stories. Oftentimes leaders focus on the bad aspects of things that employees are doing. And so that just perpetuates that, and they can't seem to understand why this thing keeps happening. Why don't you switch focus and share the good stuff happening, encouraging that, share those beautiful stories, examples of employees who have gone above and beyond, employees who are creating raving fans, like that begins to build the culture. 100%.

That reminds me of a statement that I've made to my team multiple times and reminds me that I probably need to do it again soon, that we— I lay out very clearly, this is— these are our values and we talk about our values all the time. But like I say, these are our values and this is our goal. And you as an employee are never going to be questioned if you are following these values and trying to attempt this goal. Whether you screw up, whether you do the right thing, the wrong thing, you're empowered knowing these things. This is what, you know, like you can't just put it in a vacuum, right? They have to understand what you're trying to accomplish. And the other thing that came up for me is we have this, and it's something that we've just added in the last year. I call it campfire, not real original, but like when we meet, we do this tribal thing where we share stories about where our So our mission, our purpose is enhancing the lives of our clients and our team. That's our purpose.

That's our why.

And so we have these spots in our meetings where we say, okay, give us an example. Tell us a story where we enhanced our clients' lives, right? And most of the time there's a story. I mean, we're doing this every week. So it's not like there's something every time, but to your point, we're elevating those stories to where we share them and we learn from them, right?

Yes, absolutely. Like, that's where the focus should be. Like, you are spending the same time, energy, and probably resource advertising or like bringing to light the bad stuff. You will get far better results if you focus on the positive because it just reinforces that over and over and over. And that's what the world-class brands do. Like, they focus on that behind the scenes. They continuously work on equipping them because if something is happening in your organization, and this is something that I am mindful of because of what I do. Like when I interact with a company and the employee was not as good, like I don't blame them. I actually feel sad for them. Like I have empathy for the employee. Yeah, because it's the leader's responsibility to ensure that they are equipped enough to do their job. And so if you are hiring people and saying, well, well, and I guess a big mistake most leaders also make is that they say customer service is common sense. No, common sense is not common practice. Common sense is not common practice. So we view the world differently. We have different worldviews, perspective, how we grew up, how I— right? So even within us, we are different. And a great example is like, if you have never been to a 5-star resort or flown first class, like, if you are put in the cabin or if you're put in that situation, would you be able to deliver that level of service and experience? No, absolutely not. You are going to do your best, very best, because That's what you know, like you are going to do what you can, but would it meet the expectations of those customers to the point that it might even exceed them? I don't think so. And so it's leaders truly understand that common sense is not common practice and customer service, customer experience is not common sense. When you hire them, it's now the time that you go to work for them. You create the systems, build the tools they need, the training, and make sure it's not just a one-time training because those don't work. Those are just like deodorant, right?

Yeah, we stopped using the word training on purpose and we call it education because I don't know where I heard this phrase, but I said, you know, you train dogs, right? We're dealing with people here. We're not trying to, you know, give them treats or give them the stick to perform according to how we want. What we're trying to do is educate them to give them the tools that they can do what they need to do.

Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And great insight on the education part because the training, it's very rigid. It's like policies, right? It's black or white, right? No one wants to go against policy. But when you educate, you are giving them the flexibility and the tools and awareness they need to handle situations, because sometimes there are things going to come up outside their training. What happens? Sure. Right. That's where the education comes in for them to make a well-informed choice decision for the customer.

Yes, absolutely. So when you work with a company, how do you decide what a good retention rate is?

Well, it depends on where they are, right? If your retentions are low compared to someone who is doing well, but feels like there's room for improvement, then yes, so it varies. And it depends. It's all based off of what you're trying to accomplish and what your goals are, because it's different for everyone. And so that's why our process is very customized. It's not cookie cutter. It's coming in and truly trying to understand where you are, why you even want to do this. And you made a point earlier when we're talking about leadership, like there's been situations where we've not taken a client on because they just wanted to just say they did it, right? Not commit to it. Right, right. Just to say they did it, but not actually commit to the process. And that starts with leadership.

So, so who do you normally work with? Like, who's your ideal client? If you're— if I'm, I'm going to say you need to talk to Francis, Francis is your guy. Who are you the guy for?

A scaling business leader, a scaling business leader who is growing and need to make sure they have the same standards moving forward. There's a joke in my country that when you get more customers, your service and experience depreciates because you don't have the same bandwidth that you used to have when you start as a one-man team or a team of 10, 5. Like, you can touch every aspect of the business, but as you grow, you can't. And so that's where you need to start building systems. And right, the earlier you start that, the better, because then that dictates your culture moving forward. Because when a customer or a client interacts with your business, they don't care whether it was the location in, uh, Mall or Norman. What they care about is they interacted with your business and was the experience great or not, or was it consistent to what they are used to. That's all they care about.

Yeah, and, and to a large extent, then you become like your, your weakest employee, like the person that gives them the worst possible outcome, is your weakest link. Like you can't have any bad apples in that batch because they're going to ruin it for everybody else.

Absolutely. I mean, your customer experience is your strongest with your weakest link. Like, it's only strong as your weakest link, your customer experience is. And I mean, that's the whole point of building culture. That's a whole aspect of it. Because then now you are very peculiar in who you hire, who you bring on board. You're not just hiring people, just because you need a body. And a lot of leaders just focus on finding people, but not finding the right people. And so it starts with there as well. And your employees are your clients too. They are your customers too. Your employees are your, your first customers. And so it's critical that you find the right fit. They have to be coachable, of course, but when they come in, that's when you need to ensure that you have the proper tools and standards and systems in place so it's easy for them to be successful.

Well, and what I, what I hear you saying is, is that it's, it's not something to do in the future. Like you say, I'm a business owner and I've got one employee, therefore this doesn't apply to me. Because what happens, what my experience has been, because I was exactly like you. I mean, what you said in the sense that I viewed employees as more cogs in a wheel, interchangeable. And it wasn't until we actually started this journey with Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS, where we started hiring and firing, promoting, etc., based upon values, the values actually really kicked in. And, you know, one of my colleagues Brim, who wrote a book on culture, he equated it to a game. And he said, if you're playing basketball, your culture is like the rules, right? And if you come into a basketball game and you start kicking the ball, someone's going to blow the whistle, right? Like, we don't do that here. This is— you dribble the ball, you don't kick the ball, right? And I like the way he phrased that because it's like it makes it non-negotiable, right? It's like these are the rules of the game. If you don't want to play this game, that's fine. Go somewhere else and play some different game. But in our game, these are the rules. And you really have to treat culture that way. Like it's like if you're not following the rules, if you're not adhering to our values, then you don't belong here.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It starts with leadership truly defining what that looks like, like who you are. And that's why I keep bringing it back to identity. You have to figure out what your retention identity blueprint looks like. Like, what is it? What's the first day experience like? What's the 90-day experience like? Like, you have to take them through that experience, reminding them consistently that this is the best place. But you first have to ensure that you find the right people, because that's where it all starts. That's where it all starts.

Yeah. And, and to your point, you, you can check the box and say, yeah, we, we did this, but it's, it's like anything else in your business. You, you can, you can check the box and say you did it, But it's what are you really committed to? What are you— and I wish looking backwards, like when I remember I hired my first employee the first year I was in business. And to be frank, I'd never hired anybody. I was 27 years old. I'd never hired anybody. I'd never managed anybody. And I didn't know what I was doing. But if I knew then what I know now, and hiring for culture first, I would have saved myself an inordinate amount of pain and time and money. So for those of you out there listening, say, well, that doesn't apply to me because I don't have employees. It does apply to you because it has to be your attitude first. Like it can't be anybody else's attitude until it's yours.

Absolutely. And like you can only define and measure what you manage, what you measure. And so even if you don't have employees, you still have to have standards because customers have expectations. Of you. And it starts with you. If, if it's just you, I think it's even more critical that you have standards and systems in place to ensure that you always deliver the great experience possible, because the client is relying on that and expecting you to. And it doesn't matter what phase of business you find yourself, uh, you still have to set expectations. And what are those expectations? What defines you in your culture. Whether it's one-man team or it's a thousand, you still need culture. Because culture is always happening, right? Culture is always happening whether you're working on it or not. Because culture is a verb. Culture is a verb. It's a thing that you do. What you do, what you don't do, what you say, what you didn't say, how you reacted, if you didn't. Culture is happening every single time. Every time culture is happening.

Yes. And every business, even a one-person business, has a culture. Yes. It's a question of whether you're intentional about it or not. I've said that multiple times. I didn't— I used to think culture was just like this bolt-on thing that like, and it got really confused whenever, you know, the tech companies were creating these work environments where, oh, we've got a bar and we've got ping pong tables and video games, like, right? And so I thought that was culture. No, that's not culture. Culture is who you are and what What are the best parts of you that you want to emphasize? Right? So the culture is not aspirational. Right? It's not putting the posters on the wall that say teamwork, right, where everybody is rowing in the boat. Like, those are platitudes. That's not who you are.

Right?

Now, teamwork may be one of your core values. It may be. But it's not— it always reflects— the culture always reflects who the owner is, right? You can't say, well, this is what I value, and then the values of the company be at odds with that because that won't work.

Yeah, 100%. And you know that because culture is a reflection of leadership. Whatever your culture is currently is not because your employees are not good enough. And I think that's one misconception, that culture is happening because we hire the wrong people. No, culture is a system problem. You don't have a system that defines your culture. And even if it was a people problem, it's still your fault as a leader, because one, it's either you got them that way, You knew they weren't a good fit and you still hired them, or you made them that way. You brought them on board and you never gave them the tools they needed. You never showed them how to do things or how things are done in your organization. And that's still your fault. That's still your problem.

Yeah, because every, every bad behavior you allow, and I'm defining bad as against your values, right? Like, I'm not— it's not a moral thing. It's contrary to your values, drives a wedge with those people that do adhere to your values because it's like, well, they look at it and say, well, the standard wasn't applied to that situation or that person, therefore it's not really that important.

Yeah. Yes. And that's what leads to turnover because to your point, A players don't want to be playing with D players. I mean, let's call it what it is, right? A players want to be with the A players and A pluses, right? And it's the same because at the end of the day, people are people and people are consistent. People want to feel valued, cared for, and appreciated. And at the end of the day, if they don't feel that, if they don't feel like management cares enough to ensure that everyone is on the same page or they can get away with something, the A players now begin to drag along and begin to pull their feet knowing that, oh, nothing is going to happen because they've allowed this behavior. To go on for so long. And that's what happened with quiet quitting during the pandemic. And afterward, like, we still have this going because during the pandemic, especially, like, people were reevaluating their lives. And it's like, whoa, I could have died tomorrow, right? And so, like, am I in a place that makes me feel valued, cared for, and appreciated? And if there are instances or actions in the workplace that are bad, that does not promote your values, then you're more likely going to have high turnover because no one wants to work with someone who is not pulling their weight, especially when leadership is not holding anyone accountable. That's where it starts. It starts.

I think it was Patrick Lencioni, author of Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Ideal Team Player. He's written several books, but I think it was him that coined the phrase that— it may not have been him. I don't know. Anyway, culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? And the idea that, like, you could have the best product in the world, you could have the best strategies to bring that to market, executing on marketing, all these other things, but culture trumps it all if you do it right. Like, and I think, you know, what you said is why most people don't address culture issues is because it's not easy. Like, you've got to want, like, if your culture is not what you want, you're going to have to put some work in to get it to where you want it to be.

Absolutely. And that's why I think a lot of leaders kind of put it to the side because it's work and you have to look at yourself and answer some hard questions. You have to look at your organization and say, is this who we really are? And oftentimes you hear leaders say, well, we were never like this before. Yeah, but that's because you never defined what good looks like. You never defined your identity as an organization. You are just winging it. And it was easier when you were smaller. But as you get bigger with new identities, new personalities, like you don't have the same bandwidth that you, you had in the past. And so things are going to get difficult and harder if you don't have the guardrails, the guidelines, and the systems and standards in place to ensure that everything is happening in order like you started when you started a company or how things were when you were smaller. And so it all starts by creating those systems. And standards for your organization. But culture is work. It's work. It's consistent work. And it's a long game. Long game.

It never stops.

No, culture never stops. You are all— I mean, you have to always be improving culture.

Always, always. Francis, how can people find out more about working with Flare Consulting Group?

Well, you can find me on social media platforms, Instagram, LinkedIn. YouTube, find me at Francis Flare. You can go on our website, Flare Consulting Group. I invite you to look and come to our 5-day challenge. We actually having a challenge on helping organizations and leaders build a client retention system. And so for 5 days, you get to spend, if you upgrade to VIP, you actually get to spend 10 hours with me. For the 5 days. So 2 hours each day, you get to ask me questions. And then I will show you on each day how to build a client retention system. So I love it.

Listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a message, tell us what you'd like to hear, and we'll get rid of Francis. Until then, ta-ta for now.