Bringing a new vision to customer service
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I met Dave a decade or more ago. I was doing volunteer work for the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Dave was training blind people for customer service. It soon dawned on me that what Dave was doing was invaluable: he was giving blind people real-life skills that would earn them a good living and allow them to live independent lives. Soon, I hired SCC, Dave’s company, to do the prospecting for my photo franchise business. And, as they say, the rest is history. The franchise did not survive Miami, but our friendship did.
Defining Moment -- About 40 years ago I made a decision: I'm going to eliminate the word no and every derivative of no out of my vocabulary. No, don't, won't, can't. And as a result, any opportunity that came across my desk or person I met, they said, would you, could you? And since I eliminated “no” out of my vocabulary, it took me to places that I have never experienced.
What changed? – Delivering impeccable customer service became a dying breed. And it’s terrible, because companies spend hundreds of dollars to attract customers, but don’t want to spend money retaining them. As a result, you have costly churn.
A huge change has been AI and the way it’s taken over customer service. Some misgivings: are the people in customer service asking the right questions? Because AI is trained from those interactions, and if the source is not right, the AI will not learn well.
How did he cope? – Training people better, making sure that they deliver impeccable customer service. To do this, Dave stresses honesty –these are real people answering phones.
Advice to a CEO or CMO considering 55+ candidates? – The first question is, does the candidate have a heart? Because that is key, not age, a heart. The other advice, throw them some curveballs during the interview, because this allows them to open up and reveal the real person.
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