These Strategies Will Help You Uncover the True Customer Experience

I have to ask you a question. Why do you lose customers? Now, I have to apologize. That's a really harsh way to open up this episode. But I remember back in the late '90s, I did a study to gauge the attitude and perception of customer service. Back then, I was really surprised to learn that 97% of the staff I surveyed said that their customer service was excellent. And 93% of their managers rated that the business was delivering service was rated as excellent as well. And which sounds really great. 90% say that it was excellent. The surprise was when I surveyed the customers, only 17% said that the service they received, they would rate as being excellent. So, how can you, the leader in your business, truly gauge the level of service that you provide? And that's coming up next on Marc Haine Live. Welcome back to Marc Haine Live where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them work on their business, not just in their business. I'm your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. And today, I will be speaking with mystery shopping and global customer service guru Claire Bosque Scott. And we'll get to her in just a minute. Before we dig into the show, I just wanted to invite you to subscribe to this channel. By doing so, you will be the very first person to know when I bring you some new content. We go live every Tuesday at noon Eastern Time. But I also invite you To be part of the conversation. Feel free to drop a comment or questions in the comment box. Let's get a conversation started. And of course, if you do find that the content we're presenting today to you is valuable to you, or your team members, or somebody that you know, why don't you go ahead and share it with them? You know, in past episodes, I asked you if you know your customers. And I mean, really know your customers. The premise of the episode being that if you know your customer, you can really design the kind of experiences that would wow them. Today though, I want to take that conversation just a step further. And that leads us to our Question of the Day. So, what do you do to measure your customer turnover? If you don't measure your customer turnover, how do you know why you lose them? Why don't you go ahead and put your feedback in the comment box below? I'd love to start this conversation with you. As I mentioned, my guest today is mystery shopping and global customer service guru, speaker, consultant, and trainer Claire Bosque Scott. Using a whack of different techniques. And yes, that is an official terminology, a whack of different techniques such as NLP, emotional intelligence, feng shui, and mindfulness. Claire works with and inspires businesses to make game-changing decisions by assessing, developing, and measuring employee experience and customer experience strategies. Claire is the author of 3 books, Thrive with the Hive, Thriving by Caring, and her newest release, The Secret Diary of a Mystery Shopper. And aside from running her own training institute, she also runs individual and group coaching programs empowering people to feel happier in the environment and with their employees and their customers. Welcome to the show, Claire! It's so nice to have you.

Hey! Hello, hello! How are you?

I love to see you. It's great!

Thank you so much for joining me.

Yes, it's so fabulous.

Yes, thank you so much. I mean, I think, you know, you and I are just so similar in so many ways. The first time I just heard you or watched your videos, and I was saying, this is me in a man.

Yeah, except, except you're better looking.

From the other side of the world as well.

Exactly. So just, just tip your hand a little bit and say, you know, where are you located?

Well, actually, so I would say I'm in Jersey, but for you guys on that side of the world, you will automatically think Jersey being New Jersey.

No, no, you're in the old Jersey.

It's exactly— so I live on a little island, 5 miles by 9 miles, 100,000 people, between France and England. So you know that channel here? Yeah, well, there's little islands there, and Jersey is the biggest island out of all those islands. So I've been living Nice.

So I know I tipped my hand— well, I tipped your hand a little bit with your introduction, but maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you do for your clients.

Well, I think the first word I need— I must actually just completely remove from my profile is remove holistic and add holistic.

You have to add the word whack. It's a whack of techniques.

Yeah, never mind holistic, let's whack it all in.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I, I come— my background is hospitality, just like you. I used to run hotels, and actually, um, 11 years ago, I noticed and realized that there was a gap in the Jersey market and no one was actually measuring customer service. So we had to fly over people from the UK to actually do a measurement of our services in the hotel, and I thought, this is what I need to do. I need to start a mystery shopping company, and so that's how it all started. It started about that little idea in my head and starting up as a business, and so 11 years later, I've just started doing a lot more because when you do the mystery shopping, you actually realize that you need to do something with it, right? You need to act on it. But then when you're looking at a business and actually when you're looking at what they're doing, what they're measuring, well, their standard isn't really created, developed properly. But then they don't understand what the customer journey is all about, so you need to do a bit of help with that. But then you realize that actually the employee experience isn't developed neither, and they're Staff isn't trained properly, really. So why are we doing mystery shopping when none of those steps all the way before have actually been developed? And that's why the last few years I've been doing a lot more in terms of the strategic planning, in terms of looking at the employees' experience, the customer experience, so we can measure and manage those results and performances, which really will give us some really amazing results.

Yeah. And it's amazing how the two of them are tied so closely together. And we'll get a bit deeper into that. But at the beginning of the show, I cited some statistics from ages ago when I did a study for a university program I was doing. Do you have some statistics in regards to this idea of customer retention?

Absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of businesses actually think themselves that their customers leave them because of pricing. You always hear that. Oh, it's cheaper somewhere else. But how can I make it cheaper, I can't make it cheaper. Well, when I— in actual fact, 68% of customers will go somewhere else because they perceived you are indifferent to them.

Oh.

That is shocking. You're walking in somewhere, no one's looking at you, everybody's got their eyes down, no one's even acknowledging or making eye contact. This is being completely indifferent whether the customer is here or not. What do I care? Well, if you don't care, the customers will walk out and they won't come back and they will tell their friends and family. And this is a big, you know, this is a really important, you know, figure to think about. By just increasing a little, even if it's just 5%, your customer retention, you can increase your profitability up to 50% sometimes. I mean, how crazy is that, right? Yeah.

It's just amazing because I think we fall into our fallacy because we see what we do every single day. And when we make a mistake, we go, oh, that's just one mistake. And we keep moving on. And we don't realize that on the opposite end of that is somebody who is there for an experience. And along those lines, I just want to just remind everybody that this episode is brought to you by my brand new book. Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater. In the book, I tear down what it takes to put on a great show for your customers no matter what business you are in. The book is now available on Amazon. And you can go to my website, marchaine.com, and look up Lights! Camera! Action! There is a buy direct from the author right there. And I will sign a copy. For anybody who buys a copy off the website, I will sign a copy and get it mailed out to you ASAP. And it was so much fun putting the book together because it talks a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today, Claire. You know, opening our doors to our clients is to me is really like putting on a show. In theater, we are always concerned about filling seats. And we know that How people view the show dictate whether or not they buy tickets for the next production. And this is for me where, you know, as a speaker, we say that the last speech is the only speech that counts because it will dictate whether or not somebody else hires you. As a business person, your last customer will dictate whether or not that customer will come back again. So, how can business operators start determining if people will come back to them Yeah, and you know, I worked at Disney World.

So when I was a young French girl coming out of catering school, I did a full year at Disney World at EPCOT Center in Florida. And this was my first, first real kind of opportunity to really get what that customer experience was all about. I mean, we couldn't even go into the park without having done our Mickey Mouse University for a whole week, right? And so, you know, it was a real eye-opener. Every single step, every single word, from the size of your heels to the size of your nails to how your hair are done, they are delivering this consistently. And I think that's what we forget is that to be able to do things consistently, you need to really know who you are, what are the processes, what you're going to deliver, What are the stages? And that before, during, and after, which is what you talk about, is so important. And I just talked about Disney because you made me think about something. When we were at Disney World, we were in the kitchen. So I was a waitress at the time. And you had your tray, you were going into the main restaurant, and at the top it said, smile, you're on show.

Nice.

And every time you walk through that door, you had to smile because you were on show. You know, we were— maybe we're not Beauty and the Beast, but we were still on show. We were still delivering. We were still being part of that amazing— what Disney delivered, that amazing, you know, experience. And this is what you were talking about. We are all delivering. We are all on show. We all need to be looked after. Before, during, and after consistently. Not once, not twice, but every time they come through your doors. Yeah.

And, you know, it's amazing because the whole framework of my book was the fact that I put on— I started acting and I was so blown away after doing 3 and a half months of rehearsals that first of all, nothing seemed funny anymore. Like, we're going through the lines and it's like, this is just stupid. But when you were in front of the live audience, was when I realized this is where we're making a difference. Whatever happened in their day leading up to this experience, whatever happened in the month leading up to this experience, the fact that they're reacting to us by laughing and like, I mean, it was incredible. The energy was absolutely incredible. And I remember thinking this when I did a turnover in a hotel. We had taken a nightclub and converted into a pub. And I remember people walking in for the very first time and the look of awe on their faces as they looked in and took everything in that this environment that they've seen in this small town for 40 years has absolutely converted into this magic. And it's like, how do we take that experience and make it like that every day?

Yeah. Right?

And so, the, you know, I've always appreciated how Disney does that, how they It is such an intense part of their culture. And the fact that they— I mean, just the way they call you, you're a cast member.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, you're part of the show no matter whether you're sweeping the streets or serving food and beverage or you're in costume as a Disney character. You are a cast member. And I love that. And I think more businesses should operate that way. You know, they would absolutely be able to up their game as well.

Yeah, and I think 25 years later now, we are still a cast member. You know, during that pandemic, we had, you know, there was a Facebook group who got, you know, from the old, you know, cast members, and everybody started putting photos and everybody started, you know, connecting back to each other, and it was amazing. Suddenly, within hours, we reconnected. We were all cast members again. You know, it was 25 years ago, and it sounded like it was last week. It was. It was just that real, so powerful what we experienced all together. How can a company do that with their employees? How can they make their employees so valued? How can they inspire them so much to drive together, to go together, so they perform at such a high standard? So they don't even have to train them because the employees, they want to be here, they want to do it, they're inspired by the company. And that's things, that's what we really need to, to look at. How do we inspire employees so they can deliver that great, amazing customer experience.

Yeah. And we've had previous episodes where we talked about this. I had a gentleman named Loren Kelton on one of my shows and we talked about this. We talked about starting foundationally with the culture of the business. And nobody cares. Nobody knows how much what you know. They just want to know how much you care. And that was really clear in that episode. But today, we're talking about kind of the end result to that, which is this idea of customer retention. And there's an old adage that says, what gets measured matters. When it comes down to customer retention, what sort of things should operators be measuring?

Well, I mean, I'm going to be a bit biased on that one, Marc, but—

That's why you're here.

I guess that's the title of the show. So, Yes, go for it. Well, one of the measurements which for me is very close to my heart obviously is mystery shopping. So mystery shopping is such a powerful tool because it's actually measuring what is happening in your organization right here, right now. So you could be a call center, you could be a website selling online, you could be a bricks and mortar. And I think a lot of people now think mystery shopping, it's a retail thing or mystery guests in hotels, but actually you You can absolutely mystery shop anyone and everybody, whether it's online, whether it's, you know, on the phone. And the idea is really measuring to celebrate success. Isn't it powerful?

Yeah.

You know, let's just measure to see what we're doing right, and then we can have a look, hmm, identify, you know, where there's improvement, where things can happen. So there's 2 sides. You're measuring the calling it the customer satisfaction, the journey that the customer is having, but you're also measuring your employees' performances, right? So that you get that feedback from both sides, which you can both improve. So by, you know, having somebody who's got a questionnaire already set, they're looking out for things that, you know, we've been told to do, and then giving that feedback, then you are able to really improve those performances and make a big difference to your experience. And the thing is with mystery shopping, it's so quick, right? When you talk about CX strategy and let's get a CX expert and do all those CX things, it may take 6 months, it may take a year before you can start seeing some improvement because you need to put some strategy in place, you need to improve, implement, train, and do all those things. Whereas mystery shopping, You put a program together, then next week you get the results, you can start making changes. And this is why it's so powerful to actually use that measurement. It has changed over the year, Marc. I mean, when I first started, you know, a lot of people were using it to bash people on the head, you know, oh, you've had a terrible score, you know, we're gonna, you know, you're gonna get sacked.

It's funny that you say that because in the '80s when they did secret shoppers, it became almost like an aggression against employees.

Yeah.

Because I remember when we hired secret shoppers. And again, I love the fact that you say, make it about celebrating what you did right. What really worked and then figure out ways to tweak it afterwards. Unfortunately, the way that it got used was it was ammunition to be able to pull the employee aside and say, your secret shopper said that you weren't very nice. And I remember it was as an employee growing up, it's like, I bet you that person's a secret shopper. I bet you. I bet you any money that she's the secret shopper.

I bet you.

And it almost became a game to figure out how you can How you control through and figure out who the secret shopper was. But the idea of doing secret shopping, I've also— because I've also done a lot of secret shopping, is this idea that people get defensive over what is in these reports.

Yeah. So, I think the first part of it, the very first time you're doing it and you're putting a program together, you get very— it's your baby. It's your business. Who dare How dare you telling me I'm not doing that right? And I'm not. You asked me to tell you if I was doing it right or not. You know, don't come shouting at me. But they do. And I think that's the work before you actually rolling out your mystery shopping program. You need to roll out an internal program. And you know, yes, it's a very quick and very easy way to measure, but it does need to be part of a whole program.

Right.

You know, the more insight you're getting, you know, ask your customers, you know, the assessment, the surveys, the NPS score, this mystery shopping, all adds up to get a bigger picture and a better picture of what your customers need and want from you. So I think it's important to really roll out the program and be very transparent with it. Give the questionnaire to the employees. You're not trying to trick them. You just want them to do their job, right? So it's not, oh no, I'm not showing you. This is what I want you to do. That's all we do. That's all we want you to do. So being very transparent. So make that a real— and bring everybody together. Get them involved into it. Get them really part of it because then Yes, they'll play with it. And yes, they'll start looking around. They'll start changing. But treat every customer as if they were a mystery shopper. That's the trick, isn't it?

It is. Absolutely.

Absolutely, it is.

And it's funny that you said this because this idea that— and again, because my experience growing up as an employee was in the early '80s and very much a domineering kind of leadership environment. And so it was scary when you knew the secret shopper, when the inspectors were coming or whatever, because you just knew that if you messed up, that it would mean facing the firing squad or the gallows. But now, this idea of— and you hit the nail on the head, I think, with the idea of sharing the survey with the employees.

Mm-hmm.

Have it in their hands and discuss what it is you're looking for. And you'd be absolutely— it's amazing how much knowledge employees have because it'll be something as— there's so many things that are so simple. It's like they'll come up with something and go, if we could fix the front door because it squeaks and it sticks halfway through. If we could fix that, then— and it's like, oh, I didn't even think about that.

Yeah. Oh, they didn't even know about it, right? Because they're not in their operation 24/7.

Exactly.

So, really getting your employees involved and being a part of it makes them empowering them to actually become part of the organization, become part of the change, and making it better. Yeah.

And you did mention in your response before, you mentioned Net Promoter Score. And in past episodes, we've talked about the tool. But how is mystery shopping different from— well, first of all, why don't we define what Net Promoter Score is first of all? And then maybe how is it different from mystery shopping?

So the Net Promoter Score is really when you're asking somebody, you know, we were talking about customer loyalty. How loyal are your customers? What does customer loyalty mean? And so if we're asking one question, Marc, if you're loving that restaurant that you said you were going to take me, Are you going to recommend that restaurant to your friend and family, or would you rather not? You know, if you're recommending somebody, it's because they're going to trust you that you're doing right for them. They're trusting you that you're going to give them that restaurant is going to be amazing and not poor service and bad food, right? You know, I'll listen to you, right? If Marc says that restaurant is good, I'm trusting you. I'm going to go for it. So really, if you are, as a customer, you are going to recommend, you putting your name out there to recommend something, that means that you're really enjoying it. So the NPS score, the Net Promoter Score, it's all about how would you recommend, how would you recommend that particular organization, and you can do that with employees as well. You know, the employee NPS score, you know, as an employee, would I recommend my friend or my sister to come and work here? Well, if you don't, I think there's a problem there.

Right.

So this is, you know, specifically questions to, you know, whether you would recommend it or not, and this is made specifically for your customers, although we do ask the mystery shoppers as well. In certain questionnaires, we will ask them, would you recommend that? But it becomes very personal, whereas a mystery shopper has to be responding to questions in a very objective way. So you're asking them specific questions, did they bag the bag, did they give you with 2 hands, with the lights all turned on, were they wearing their name badges? So this is very specific on, you know, day-to-day things. However, it has grown a lot, and, you know, the mystery shopping was a lot of tick boxes, you know, back years ago when I first started out. It was only 10 years ago, but it was very much tick boxes, and it has grown a lot into really connecting. We want to connect with our customers on an emotional basis. Whether it's a mystery shopper or whether it's a real customer, how are you connecting with them? How are they feeling when they come out of your shop or your, you know, call? Are they putting the phone down and they're swearing at the phone, you know, when they're coming off you? Or do they think, wow, that was amazing, you know? So the more it's growing and the more we're going into being a bit more objective into asking certain questions which can be taken by, for example, the employees and saying, well, you know, I've done all that right, you know, why did you say I didn't give great service? Well, because perhaps you did, you know, yes, you were wearing your name badge, yes, you said thank you 3 times, yes, you mentioned their name, but actually you did none of them looking at them and making eye contact and generally showing them that you cared. You know, so you're moving towards, you know, gaining and improving the performances by really looking at how people are feeling, behaving, and thinking.

Right. Right.

That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's funny about the checkboxes because on my website, I actually created a customer touchpoint assessment that people can download for free. And the idea being that, you know, at the very start of it, if you could look at what your customers see, And so really out of my framework of lights, camera, action, this is really the camera aspect of it. This is really the, you know, when somebody comes into your parking lot, what are they seeing? Are they seeing a light burnt out? Are they seeing that the sidewalk is covered with snow? Are they— is the parking lot potmarked and all that sort of stuff? And you go through the assessment and you can really see it from the perspective of somebody who's never walked into your building before or into your business before. And then, you can assess it whether or not that's important to fix.

Mm-hmm.

And so, I encourage people to go to my website at marchaine.com and go to the resources section. I do have the assessment there. But as Claire has alluded to, it does nothing to talk about the interactions of your employees with the guests. And Claire, you tie it really closely to this idea that experience is more than what people are doing or seeing. It's how they're feeling.

Yeah.

So, I know that operators can hire companies like yours and mine to do mystery shopping. But can leaders design and implement an internal mystery shopping program themselves? Or do they have to hire somebody?

Yes. I mean, funny enough, it's something that when COVID hit, I'd obviously— I'm a small island, 100,000 people. There's only so many shop that can mystery shop, right? So I did have an operation of about 80 mystery shoppers, and in the end I kind of decided to close that operation of the mystery shopping to focus more on the strategic side of it. And actually, something that, you know, I've heard so many times by smaller businesses is, Claire, this looks really good, but I can't afford your pricing. Oh, okay. Right, okay. So, okay, so we're gonna do it in-house, we're gonna do it in-house, and you're like, are you sure you know what you're doing? So actually, during that pandemic, I started creating several online courses, and one of them being how to set up a mystery shopping program, because smaller businesses actually, they may want to measure it, but they're not knowing necessarily how to do it, you know, what's really the steps to do it. And actually, when you start realizing how much work there is behind it, you realize that perhaps actually getting a company to come in and do it for you, if you start growing it and doing it on a bigger scale, it's good to look at companies. If anybody looks for mystery shopping, apart from you and I obviously, but look at MSPA, the Mystery Shopping Professional Association. Please, you know, look at those companies who are members of the association because you know they're gonna do a right job for you. You know they're gonna follow this ethical conduct. You know they're gonna have the best standard for you. Um, there's quite a lot of companies out there, and so you don't want to be going with somebody who not necessarily knows what they're doing, and then you— and then it gives us a bad reputation, you know, oh, it didn't work, you know, this was not very good. Well, you know, maybe, you know, so yes, so I have got— if anybody's watching and want to do an online course and actually learn the steps so you can do it yourself, can I say the link there?

Sure, the link is down below in the show notes.

Okay, all right, fabulous.

And I think I put it in as visit Claire's course or see Claire's course here.

Fabulous. So it's the online course, it's BQB CX Institute, and it's the online course that will really kind of give you the steps, and for mystery shoppers as well, because you think that as a mystery shopper, oh yeah, I love shopping, I can do mystery shopping. Okay, and you know about this and about that and about that and about that, oh my God, is that all I've got to do? Yeah, so I've created a course as well for anybody who wants to become a mystery shopper. and know exactly how to be loved by mystery shopping companies, how to get really kind of repeat visits and making a business out of it. It's amazing. It really is a cool thing.

Great. So you mentioned your course. Could you also let everybody know how they can get in touch with you if they want to explore your services a little bit?

Okay. So yes, absolutely. So, well, claireboscott.com, which is the name, And that's really kind of the— it's the queen of everything that I do. You'll find all the links there from, you know, the online training programs to the mystery shopping, you know, keynote speaking. So I love— and of course, Marc, my little book. Your little book. Look at that. Shameless plug.

Shameless plug. The Secret Diary of a Mystery Shopper.

Sorry, I had to plug it in.

No, please. And again, the link for that is down below as well. I hope this is making sense to you and is of value to you. Please feel free to give it a thumbs up. Right now, I see 2 people have given a thumbs up.

Yay! Yay!

And please feel free to share this video with people you think might benefit from it. If you're in a Chamber of Commerce, this is really important information for your members to know. If you're in economic development, likewise, your community needs to understand that as a community, we have to look at customer service as a whole, not just necessarily as independent businesses. I went into one community, people raved about the community itself, but on social media, they slammed the businesses. They felt like they were outsiders when they visited this small community. So this is something that we can we can absolve by getting our community involved in customer care, customer service, and being able to measure it in some form or fashion.

Yeah, and it raises the bar, doesn't it, Marc? You've talked about raising tides raise the boats, huh? You see, I remember that one.

Yeah, rising tide raises all boats.

Right, okay. So is that if as a community you are able to measure how are you measuring as an overall in the businesses? And you are able to give that measurement to all the local businesses and they're thinking, okay, well, this is the benchmark. If I do this, this, and that, I could be so much better than the others. And then you start raising the bar and you start raising the bar and the whole community start raising the bar and start really kind of bringing more care into what they do and delivering that amazing customer experience. Yeah.

Yeah, I do have a program called the 5-Star Service Excellence Program, which is built for communities.

Right.

And it uses gamification to help businesses kind of adapt and adopt really great customer service skills and the analysis of customer service skills that they can improve individually. And it's brilliant. But it's amazing even still how many times, like even when I went into the community and we were talking about how do you bring tourism dollars into a your community, which is the mainstay. I mean, we know that in municipalities, people will visit as a tourist first before they move to a community. Just like when you moved to the island, you probably went and visited it and thought, this is brilliant, this is nice, what a nice day we're having. Yeah, and then it's like, oh, we should move here. And so tourism in communities and the perception of outsiders visiting communities is so And it was amazing to me when I was talking to a gas station operator and I was talking about tourism and he looked at me, he goes, I'm a gas station, I'm not in tourism.

And it's like, oh my goodness, who's—

who are they going to visit first when they pull over off the highway into your community? They're going to visit the gas station and the gas station absolutely has to know what's going on in town.

Yeah, yeah, we had the same with taxi drivers. You know, there was a— we were doing a bit of a Yeah. And we did a mystery shop on all the local community here in Jersey, and the taxi drivers, they're your first point of call when you arrive at the airport. You know, they're the first people who are going to tell you, oh, you're going to love it on this island. I've been here for 30 years and I love it. Or they're going to say, oh, this is so boring and it's raining again and there's nothing to do here. Don't go in that restaurant because they're really bad. Right?

Yes, absolutely.

Those are the first things that you're gonna hear, you know. And so we need to ensure that everybody feels part of it, you know. They're all part of, you know, increasing and having that real great community experience. Definitely.

Yeah, yeah. And in past episodes, we talked about the importance of creating a positive culture. And you alluded to this. We talked a little bit about this at the beginning, and I kind of want to just tap back into it. I believe it was J.W. Marriott who said that if you take care of your employees, How does what we're talking about today really apply to the employees? We talked about the customer experiences. How does that tie in with the employees?

Well, I think if anything, this pandemic has shown us something. If you don't take care of your employees, they're not going to be taking care of your customers and you'll be closing your doors. And this is, you know, Looking at the environment that your employees are living in, looking at how they're feeling, how they're connecting, how they're engaging, you know, drive performances. And if they're not feeling right, if their mental state isn't right because they've been in their home, you know, with the kids jumping around everywhere, this has really tremendously changed our performances. So companies need to think employees first. Let's give them some great, you know, healthy— let's teach them how to make their environment better. Let's teach them how to feel better in themselves so they can feel better with others. They can deliver that great service. They can perform. They're not tired. They're not looking bored or they're not disengaged. You know, there was a figure that I use when I do my presentation, my keynote presentation. 88% of US workers go to work every morning and they don't think that the company they work for actually care for them and about what they do and who they are. That's 8, that's almost 9 out of 10 people go to work and they don't think that the company they work care for them. Why would they care for, you know, the customers that they're serving if they're not being cared for? So, you know, like you and I, we bring that care. Bring more care into your businesses. Absolutely show them, you know, the environment is so important. The people are so important. And once you've looked after them, that will dry up. Definitely give that great service.

Yeah. And it's so funny that we're talking about this, this employee is giving great service. But, you know, at the same token, I've heard the argument of, you know, well, that person doesn't serve customers. And I remember my mentor and he quoted somebody and he said, if you're not serving a customer, you better damn well be serving somebody who— which I thought in a nutshell, when you talk about culture, that was just brilliant. It's like, how do you turn this around that everybody inside our business is customers as well?

Yeah, absolutely. That is so funny. That is so funny. And I think we all have We're all taking responsibility, and I think from the employee experience, from the beginning of it, so from the CEOs, the board of directors, they need to take responsibilities about their values, their visions, how they really bring that culture together. Because if you're recruiting somebody and they're going to have the same values as the company, this will align. You know, if they're inspired by that vision and what they're trying to do, they will align, they will perform, you know, they will do it automatically. They won't have to need to get a bonus at the end of each month to get them motivated about, you know, that intrinsic motivation is so powerful. So it does take, you know, from the leaders to really show the way, you know, and lead, lead with a yin, you know, I always say lead and, you know, lead with that more feminine energy, which really kind of shows that you care rather than just demanding figures, demanding more sales, demanding all this, which is that more yang energy and, you know, very powerful, which then can make people feel really stressed and worried and all that kind of thing. So we need to have a better balance in our businesses for sure.

Yeah. In our topic today, we've talked about different things and really how big this is. And we talked about how people can go ahead and hire people like you and me. But do you have any strategies that we haven't talked about today that the audience could use right now to start the ball rolling? Like they don't necessarily have the budget and so on. What can they start doing as soon as they're done here today? What can they start to get the ball rolling on this?

You know what? The simplest thing to do is to walk out of your organization and walk in as if you've never been there before. Whether it's a retail, hotel, anything, any organization, walk in, pick up the phone as if you've never been in that organization. What can you see? What can you smell? What can you touch? What can you hear? Using your 5 senses will make you realize how you're feeling walking in, and actually that is how your customers are going to be feeling.

Yeah.

So if you're walking in and, you know, there's a mess everywhere, no one's looking up, and you're going to think, oh, do I really want to shop here? Don't think so. You're walking back out again. I think you've got a bit of work to be done.

Yeah.

That's free. Mystery shop yourself. Yeah.

And do it in a way that you're looking as an outsider in. I think all too often, people say, well, that's— the way they're supposed to do it is this way and they're not doing it. And it's like, stop looking at it in that context. Start looking at it from the context of if I walk in as a customer, what am I seeing? And it's so funny because when my daughter was really little, She kept losing her shoes. And we had a game that we played. And it said, you know, because she saw all the shoes, you know, I have 4 kids and, you know, it seems like the more kids you have, the more shoes you have. But it was like, it was really hard for her to find the shoes. And so I said, okay, put the binoculars on. And we'd walk in and we'd do this. And we'd go and look for her shoes. And, you know, it was amazing the focus that that creates when you do this. And it became a big game to the point where, you know, she, you know, it's like, put your knoculars on. She used to call them knoculars. And it used to be that before she— before we had to leave, she'd go and she'd hide her shoes so we would play the game. But it's amazing when you take a look through a limited scope.

Yeah.

Actually looking at and look at it for what it is, not what you think it should be, but what is it?

Yeah.

So, as we go forward, we've got to wrap up a little bit. Are there any cautionaries about what we're talking about today? We've talked about so many things. What are some of the things that could actually damage a business or things, steps that people might do that really hurt them?

Well, I think we talked about, you know, not caring, which is a big thing. And obviously that pandemic, businesses are firefighting here, there, and everywhere. So you can kind of, you know, give them a little bit of Oh, right, okay, you know, we'll give you a little bit of leeway. But ignoring people, ignoring people, it's a terrible thing to do, you know. And if anything, teach your employees 3 free things, right? Every single employee should be doing that: eye contact, a smile, and a hello. They're free gifts, you know. Don't ignore your customers. You see them. You walk through the door and the employees put their head down and they walk on the other side so you don't ask them a question, right? Make your employees feel and your customers feel that there's something that you're really genuinely appreciating, that they're actually coming into your shop or your business. They're paying your wages, right? They are paying your wages. If there's no customers, there's no business. We need to really kind of be here. And the same for the employees. You know, if you say, oh, we've got an open-door policy, right? The managers, they've all open doors. They're never in their office. The door's never open. What's the point? You know, what's the point? They're never here to listen. So listening is a really important thing, you know, and really showing that, you know, you generally want to be here. And generally want to care for people.

That's really great.

Yeah. If that makes sense.

Thank you so much for what you've done today, Claire. This has been truly amazing. It's so cool to be able to hang out with a like mind because obviously, everything you're talking about is if anybody wants to actually Take what Claire is saying today and put it on steroids. Pick up my book because I share so many different stories of what I've seen over the years. It's funny but it's funny in a way that it's like you just shake your head and you go, I can't believe it. And likewise, check out Claire's new book because she, I'm sure, unfolds all sorts of stuff.

I know. I know. And I think that's what it is, isn't it, Marc? You say stories but people People relate to stories. And, you know, the book— my book is full of mystery shopping stories, true stories that really happened. So you can relate to it, and suddenly you think, ooh, what if this happened in our organization? What would we do? How would we deal with that? You know, so it does make you think about, you know, perhaps, you know, a situation that you would have not thought about before.

Or worse, they read it and they go, oh crap, I do that.

Absolutely.

So, Claire, before we wrap up, could you just remind everybody one more time, how can they get a hold of you?

Okay. So, just the website. It's claireboscott.com or look at Google me. Just Google me. You'll find me everywhere. I'm on all the social media. I'm all everywhere. So, you know, you won't find— and it's a bit of a funny name as well. So, I'm sure you'll find it somewhere somehow.

But you're also known as the Queen Bee, right?

Yes. So, the Busy Queen Bee was the beginning, right at the beginning of my business. So, the Busy Queen Bee was— so, if you're Googling Busy Queen Bee, you will find that as well. It's been a long time going.

Well, that's all the time that we have for today. Claire, thank you again for sharing your obvious passion with us today. You really have brought, I think, huge value to the audience. And I'm absolutely sure, you know, the people will look and they'll— tons of people nodding their head. Thinking, oh yeah, we have to do something about that. Oh yeah, we have to really do. So, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you very much. I hope to see you very soon. Bye for now!

So, why don't you give me a thumbs up if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, please feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is down below. It's meetme.so/MarcHaine. It'll be my pleasure to sit down with you and your team and kind of wrap up kind of what is going on in your business. Maybe, how are things? Just having that outside perspective. And as we've said many, many times on this show that you can leverage people outside your business to help you with your business. I don't know why I'm flashing back all over the place. Here we go. And as always, I am at your service. If you haven't done so yet, I would really love it if you would hit the subscribe button and ring the bell. That'll give you first dibs whenever I bring you some brilliant content. Brilliant, I'm telling you. That will help you work on your business, not just in your business. Again, my name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.

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