Customer Service vs Being OF Service w/ Marc Haine

Hi everyone, I'm Azadeh, here with Marc Haine, the brilliant man behind how to explain customer service in a very different light. Stay tuned for a very intimate conversation. Hi everyone, my name is Azadeh, owner and brand strategist at Go Go To The Creatives, and I am here today with Marc Haine.

Yes, hi everybody. I am a speaker, author, and master of experiences when it comes down to service, both internal and external service. And I have had the pleasure of working with Azadeh for quite a few months now on building a whole new brand. It's been exciting.

It has been, and actually it's been as exciting for me working with Marc.

Oh, do tell.

Because I actually really want you to talk about this because it's been an eye-opener for me, the way that I've listened to you talk about the subject. And that is the subject of customer service. Now, I gotta tell you, when we are— I like it, he just took off his glasses. Get serious and juicy.

Roll up the sleeves.

So whenever we get Clients or customers come to us and we always say, you know, what makes you special? What do you do that's really great? One of the, one of the most things that everybody says is we provide really good customer service. And so we have to say, well, what is it about the customer service that makes it really great? What are you actually doing? And so I think a lot of people are not really clear about what is customer service and how do you actually go beyond that. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so that's really an interesting thing. You know, Gary Maxwell talks about category language, and if you go onto Gary Maxwell's site, you'll see that. Again, fabulous, fabulous speaker and brand strategist. But he talks about category language, and that is if you go to your competitor's website and look up what they talk about themselves, you'll see that people repeat the same verbiage on and on and on and on. And so it's really super easy. I don't think there's anybody on the planet who would say, yep, I built a business and We don't do customer service. We're not going to serve you at all. Of course, it's not going to happen, right? So then, it becomes a question of, well, how do you deliver on the service? And so, one of the things that I've fallen into with my consulting and with my speaking is this idea that service, it's not about customer service. Being of service, which means that no matter what relationship we have, we're looking out For the benefit of the other person before our own will, want, and desire. I think this happens— we were talking earlier, you and I were talking about networking skills and that sort of thing, and that's where I've kind of fallen into now that I realize that the best way to network is to be able to sit at a table with people, find out what their needs are, find out what their pain points are, and then find out how can you fit into that. And to be absolutely honest, sometimes it's not about you. Because you don't have the capability to help them, but maybe you have a resource that you can point in their direction. Well, the minute you start doing that with people, all of a sudden they realize that this is a guy who helped me, didn't ask for anything in return, and all of a sudden he's top of mind. So when I do need what he does deliver, he's the first one I'm going to be calling.

Mm-hmm.

So this idea of being, first of all, of service becomes kind of a cultural identity. My background being in hospitality, and this works doesn't work just in in hospitality works across all industries. That when you have leadership that is of service, you end up with better teams. When you have teams that are of service, you end up with better team members. And when you have team members that are being of service, you end up with better customer experiences. And so at the end of the day, it's about those customer experiences, about creating a culture where we come to work every. single day willing to be of service to others.

So how do organizations, whether they're associations or in the hospitality industry, in tourism, etc., etc., how do they tap into that distinction that you just talked about?

Well, first of all, I think it's an internal definition. You know, in hospitality, in hotels for instance, we used to have rules that if you were 20 feet away from somebody, you had to nod. To acknowledge their existence. So you'd see somebody down, housekeeper would see somebody coming out of the room, they'd go, right? If you were within 10 feet, you had to say good morning. And if you were within 5 to 3 feet, then you had to start a conversation. So it was good morning, how was your stay, were you comfortable, right? And so by that, by doing that—

Are these rules?

So these, these are actual policies that we had in hotels so that when we train people to come in, we wanted to train them to be open to the customer guest experience. And so, you would train that. But the one thing you couldn't train is you couldn't train this belief system that I want to be of service. And so, the difference between, let's say you go into a hardware store. The difference between service and being of service is somebody comes in and goes, yeah, I'm looking for a certain screw. Okay, it's in aisle 12. That's being of service. That's being— that's serving.

Serving.

That's serving. Being of service is, yeah, come with me. It's in aisle 12. It's just over here. And they lead you down and they point it out. Here are the selection of screws.

So, how do you get to serving someone from a place of being of service?

So, being of service becomes again, a core. It becomes a cultural identity. It becomes something as a company, as an organization. It's something that we do. It becomes ingrained. But it's something, it can only start at the top. A manager or a leader, a CEO sitting in a corner office somewhere telling people, I want my people to be of service. Is not going to instigate that kind of a belief system. It has to start at the very top. And when you think of a leader who might be of service, you would think of somebody like Simon Sinek.

Yes.

Right? I mean, he exudes that he wants to be of service. These are people that will create the culture at the very top of the hierarchy, and they are of service to the people who report to them. them constantly and ongoing. And that could be through mentorship programs, through regular performance appraisal systems that are not annual appraisal systems. Put a noose around my neck if anybody says, oh well, we evaluate our people annually.

Yeah.

Right? What a horrible way to be of service to your staff.

Yeah.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Having said that, if you create a culture where you're starting at the very top, You're committed to being of service to everybody else around you. So people, you know, middle managers are of service to the people above them, to the people beside them, and the people below them. That is how you create that culture. And when your team understands that you are of service to them, they are more than happy to be of service to you, to their colleagues, so better teamwork, and then to the customers.

That's so brilliant. And I know listening to you talk about all of this, because we've been building your brand based on this, it's been really helpful for me To then take that and go, oh yeah, then how are we providing service to our clients? And when I hear other people now, other clients talk about it, I now tune in. And I think one of the distinctions that stood out for me when you talk about this is that when you are serving someone, you just serve them. It's like, you know, you want A, here it is.

That's right.

But when you are of service, it starts from you caring. from that compassionate part, it's when, you know, there's an emotion involved to you really caring about that individual. So now your perspective is very different of how you are going to be of service.

Yes.

And I think that's brilliant to actually get a team behind that, for them to understand the difference of just provide the thing and go versus really care about this situation and what's happening right now, really get into it.

Yes.

I think is the thing that is the— Secret sauce to what you do.

And I truly believe that that becomes a differentiation in people's businesses. Today, it is not uncommon for people not even to get service. Like, I talk to groups and a lot of times people will say, Marc, if I could only get service, that would be an experience. Because too many times we get into situations, we go to restaurants, we get checked into hotels and stuff, and people are just doing their job. And there's that whole big philosophy that you only get a first chance to make a first impression.

Yes.

My question is, when is that impression made? Is it during first contact? Because I truly believe that there are 3 things that happen when you come into a customer contact scenario. One is that you disappoint the customer and the customer goes, oh, well, that's a shame. I'm never going to be back. You didn't do anything to make this customer happy at all. Then you have the The opposite end of the spectrum where you really wow the customer and they go, oh my goodness, that was the best experience ever. It was fantastic. Then there's the middle ground where you did your job. The customer basically got the basic expectations met. They checked in, they ordered their food, whatever it was, but basic expectation. I went in with this expectation. You delivered. I walked out. No fuss, no muss. No memory. Right? And so this idea of first impression can be that you run into a convenience store, you want to buy some gum, you go in, you buy the gum, you walk out, you don't even remember what store it was. And to me, that is almost as bad as not having an impression because you're forgettable.

That's right.

And so a lot of businesses need to work really hard actually on being forgettable because they deliver such bad service.

Right.

Right? That everybody's going, I'm never gonna go there again. Oh my God, the way they talk to me.

And they'll remember that forever. Yeah.

And they'll tell their friends, friends.

Yeah.

Right? And so, you know, at the very least, be unmemorable. Because at least then nobody has a perception of good, bad, or ugly. But of course, we always want to focus on taking it to the next step of being exceptional and daring to be that exception. Where the challenge really lies then is what does it take to make that happen? And I— you and I were talking a couple of days ago about this idea of, you know, how much work does it take to To be exceptional.

Yes.

To be extraordinary. And really, if you look at the word extraordinary, it's extra ordinary. So all you have to do is just be ordinary and care this much to create that extraordinary experience.

Yeah. So another thing that I actually love that Marc does, it's this— It's the juggling. Strategy.

No, no, I don't juggle.

It's this cool thing that you've come up with that hits on Oh, yes. It's your concept of Lights! Camera! Action! And so can you tell the audience a little bit about that?

Absolutely. So Lights! Camera! Action! is a framework that I created. One of the things I got to do very recently was I got started acting in community theater. And one of the things that occurred to me after our first night of opening, we rehearsed for months and it was a very strange experience for me because I can't remember what I had for breakfast, let alone remember my lines. But so I was super stressed out about opening night and we went through opening night. And so we had, in the town of Devon in Alberta, we have a community theater called East of 60 Productions. And so we do a dinner theater where we'll do, in some shows we'll only do 3 shows, other seasons we'll do 6 shows. It all depends on the group that we have together. And I realized after the opening night, I came on for this about an hour early to the second show, getting ready. We were all getting ready. And I just had this thought. I was standing on stage looking at the empty room. And I looked at all the work that it took to get us there. The work that it took to create a dinner theater. So we had to contract our caterers. We had to get volunteers in to set tables and make sure everything was perfect. Of course, we had a set designer and then we had set builders. And so we had— we volunteered to build our own sets. And then we made absolutely sure that we had props that were feeding into the story we were telling. And then we practiced and we felt, you know, we created this aspect of teamwork among the cast. Of being able to figure out what our lines are, where did we need to be, how did we execute those lines. The director was constantly providing feedback to us. And I stood on this stage after the opening night and I thought to myself, what would happen if businesses put this much focus into their businesses as we did just to put on 6 shows? And so, all of a sudden, this light bulb went off. This idea of Lights! Camera! Action! How the operational excellence, business excellence can be shaped through the lens of live theater. And so now I've come up with this framework, Lights! Camera! Action! that we take a look at business operational excellence through this framework of lights being kind of the underbelly, the foundation of the business. How do you set the culture? How do people work together? How do you, you get the best people in to do the best job possible? How do you set the culture where you're going to be successful? And then camera is everything that the customer or the audience will see that needs to be worked on before the audience ever walks into the store or the show or whatever production you're putting on. And then of course action is the actual service delivery.

Mm-hmm.

And of course I'm a firm believer that, you know, Customer service is wonderful when everything goes right. The real telltale is when things are gonna go wrong. So the action component really focuses a lot on how do I deal with the divas in my team? How do I deal with the problems? And how do I shake it up in such a way that we still live our passion, we still live our values, and we're then able to lead with care and kindness first?

Brilliant. And you're actually writing a book on this.

I am. It's called Lights! Camera! Action! The working subtitle might change. Just a hint, is business operational excellence through the lens of live theater.

That's right.

I'm gonna be working with her and we're gonna tweak that a little bit.

I love it. This man is brilliant. For those who are watching, what is an advice that you have? One thing that they can do.

Look at every— look at your tasks every single day and say, how can I care more? How can I put my— because the minute you care just a little bit more, your whole reality will change. That's very good. Yeah, and the customer— of course, the spin-off is customer experience will change.

Very cool. And then get in touch with this gentleman.

Yes, and so if you need to get in touch with me, you can go to my website at marchaine.com. That's M-A-R-C-H-A-I-N-E dot com, or you can email me at marc@marchaine.com.

And when can we expect your book to be launching?

We're fighting for, for the fall of 2019. But it's probably more likely going to be the winter because, you know, I'm really super picky with my editor and it's probably going to get delayed a little bit. But so you can definitely think of it probably by the beginning of 2020.

Very cool. So looking forward to it.

Thank you very much, Heather. Thank you, Marc.

Thank you. Thanks for watching.

Thanks. Nice having you. Bye.