No Cost, Really?

This entry is part 6 of 13 in the series SNAP - Draft

The title of this book proclaims “A No Cost Way to Restore Full Service”. Really? No cost?

Here’s the simple answer: Yes, really, no cost.

Of course, nothing is really no cost. It cost you a little bit to get this book, and it cost you some time to read it. And it may cost you some time to share SNAP with your team. And it may cost you some time to experiment with different versions of a SNAP statement to find the one that work best for you. You may also have a modest investment if you fly me in to conduct training for your organization.

You get the idea. You will need to invest in SNAP to get the benefit of SNAP.

However, you will not need to invest a lot of money, you will not need to plan a budget in order to afford SNAP, you will not need a chief financial officer to do a return on investment analysis. You will not need your computer systems department to approve complex technology. You don’t need to set up a savings plan and save up for months or years. You don’t need to swap out expensive equipment in order to afford SNAP.

I could go on and on. But, I think you get the idea. You can get SNAP up and running right here and right now. It is truly plug and play.

SNAP is no cost. It is yours. Run with it!

So, yes, the cover of the book accurately proclaims SNAP is a no cost way to restore full service.

Let’s look at how to put the four no cost parts of SNAP together.

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The Parts of SNAP

This entry is part 7 of 13 in the series SNAP - Draft

Let’s look briefly at the various parts that make up SNAP. We will then look at each part in more detail, sharing a bit more insight into how you can best use and leverage SNAP.

SNAP stands for —
– Status
– Next Steps
– Approximate Timeline
– Planned Outcome

A SNAP statement is made up of four parts. A great SNAP statement is approximately two to five simple sentences — put together they deliver the SNAP message. Don’t measure your SNAP statement quality by how many sentences are in it — two to five sentences is just a guide. If you write statements that are longer, look at them to make sure that, for your needs, longer is better. I find that shorter, to the point, is better. That way you can deliver a SNAP message in 30 seconds.

Here, a word of advice: keep the tone of your SNAP message conversational; keep it consistent with your customer experience. You know what is best here. I find that conversational, normal, informal, and using everyday language works best.

Let’s revisit the fast food lunch order from earlier in the book.

“Excuse me sir, I know you just placed your order, however, right after we put your order through we also got slammed with a very large order from a tour bus — some really famous country star, they won’t tell us who it is, but, I think it will be on the news tonight. Anyway, your sandwich is being made right now and will take a few minutes longer. Usual wait time for us about two to three minutes, we should be able to get your meal out in a little over five minutes. I hope that is not too much of an inconvenience. Will that be ok?”

Yes, this statement is five sentences, including the closing question. I admit, the first sentence does run on, however, it fits the tone and circumstance for the customer. The tone is conversational and comforting.

Here is some other advice — what not to do. I have experienced some SNAP users walking through a SNAP message just like they were reading a script. You have heard that, too, at times when ordering a to-go order at a restaurant.

“I would like a burger, fries and soda to go.”

“Will that be for here or to go?”

There you go, that is a script. Auto pilot. You don’t want your SNAPs to be auto pilots. Here’s another approach to avoid.

“Ok, so I need to tell you about the status of _____. Now let me tell you what the next steps are; they are _____. Now I will let you know what the approximate time line is; it will be ____ for us to follow up. The planned outcome at the end of all this is _____.”

Don’t laugh. After reading this example, you might be saying to yourself that you would never deliver a SNAP message like this. However, the example above is drawn from my personal experiences in coaching others about SNAP; I can’t make this stuff up.

This is a good SNAP message:
“Your request to post a full time analyst has been approved today and was posted today. Jobs are posted for five days, after which we will refer the top 10 qualified candidates to you. Your recruiter for this job is Bob.”

Three sentences.

Here’s another way I have seen less than perfect statements. We do use email a lot, and the above message will easily go into an email. See the sample and please don’t do this:
“Status: analyst posted
Next steps: candidates will apply; will send over to you
Approx time: will send applicants after job closes
Planned outcome: you fill the job”

Once again, this is taken from real life. Please don’t do this. You may be able to check off a box and say to your boss or team, “Yeah, I used a SNAP message,” but this type of message does not help you.

As you put the parts of SNAP together, don’t settle. Push yourself to write and use purposeful, conversational and meaningful messages.

You will notice in the example of good SNAP statements that the words status, next steps, approximate timeline and planned outcome are rarely used. We can tell these things to our customer without being blatant about it.

Let’s look at the four parts of SNAP.

Status. Mention the status of:
A request
An order
Current wait times

Next Steps. Mention what specific next steps the customer can expect. Mention more than just the immediate next step; mention two or three steps that follow.

Approximate Timeline. Mention how long the current status will exist, how long it will be until the next step is completed, the due date for the planned outcome. This timeline might be in minutes if you are selling burgers, and might be days or weeks if you are doing custom work or building software solutions.

Planned Outcome. Mention what the customer can expect to see, get, receive, have delivered. It doesn’t matter if they know what they ordered or requested, tell them anyway. And, many times, we have customers, especially internal customers, who may submit requests and not really know what they are going to get. Tell them.

A quick start approach to SNAP is to draft out ideas for each of the four parts of SNAP. Then, just put them together. To ensure a highly effective SNAP, as you draft and compile these four parts remember this axiom: less is more.

These four parts of SNAP all work together. One does not work well without the others. Let’s look at each part in greater detail.

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Restoring Full Service

This entry is part 4 of 13 in the series SNAP - Draft

The cover of the book proclaims a way to “restore full service”. What does this really mean?

Part of the SNAP inspiration comes from good, old fashioned U.S. of A. gas stations. Remember, we used to call them “service stations”.

Here is a fun link about those old style full service gas stations. (Image and link from http://goretro.blogspot.com.)

During the 1950s and 1960s, when you pulled into a service station to fuel your car you got full service. And, though the attendant did not know it, he was fully engaged with SNAP. Took me a while to get wrapped around this, but consider what happens when you pull into the full service station — 1950s style.

As you pull in, you drive over a hose that triggers a bell in the station. The attendant comes running out as you come to a stop near the gas pump. The attendant is at the driver side door; you don’t even get out of the car — all you do is roll down your window. The attendant asks you how many gallons of gas you want or if you want a “fill up”. While the attendant fills your tank he checks your oil, your wiper fluid, cleans your windows and lets you know the air pressure in your tires. He may do more, as well.

The SNAP is not related to what the attendant does for you; it is related to how he does it; the attendant communicates with you by “how” he delivers service. You remain in your car while the attendant attends to your car. You see what he is doing all the time. He talks to you and lets you know what he finds and asks you if you need anything else. It doesn’t matter how quick it takes for this service to be delivered to you. What does matter is that you are informed every step of the way.

In the example of the service station, the actions of the attendant are his SNAP. You, the customer, know the status of what he is doing, you know what the next steps are, you know what the approximate timeline is, and you know what the planned outcomes are. The attendant checks in with you as he performs his tasks. You are fully informed. In large part, the method of service delivery allows you to see what the attendant is doing, and this is a major part of how you get SNAPed. You see what is going on. You know what is going on.

The concept of full service for SNAP is less about the “whats” that are being done. It is so much more related to the “hows” (the messaging) of the full service being performed.

Why is this important? Because, in today’s economy, the “what” of what we do is very different and because of technology so are the “hows”. We work remotely. We use email, the internet, systems, texts, tweets, and other less personal forms of interacting. Our modern methods of less personal communication put a burden on the communication aspects of SNAP. Assume less, communicate more.

If you focus on what has been covered so far about SNAP, you will realize that SNAP does not care. SNAP just wants to be used, to be snapped into place. The more impersonal your relationship, the more you will want to insert SNAP messages into your workflows.

The service station attendant engaged in SNAP just by doing what he did; moving around the car, doing his tasks, asking you questions, letting you know what he found. All real time. Today, we have to do more. We have to go out of our way to insert SNAP. Better yet, insert SNAP as “real time” as possible. This will result in your customer experiencing full service. This is what you want.

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Objections

This entry is part 8 of 13 in the series SNAP - Draft

Perry Mason, the attorney character created by Earl Stanley Gardner, was noted for proclaiming “Objection! Immaterial! Irrelevant! Incompetent!”

Younger readers might connect with the word “Objection,” shown in over sized red letters and shouted by Phoenix Wright.

Either way, when it comes to objections, they are all immaterial, irrelevant and incompetent! Exclamation point used with purpose and intent.

“If we don’t take care of the customer… somebody else will.” — Source unknown.

There are many reasons for not doing SNAP — or so others will tell you. I have been teaching others about SNAP (or a version of SNAP) for over 10 years.

Here are some of the more commonly mentioned reasons for not doing SNAP.

Read through these objections. Do any of them sound familiar; have you heard these before from anyone? What thoughts or reaction do you have to these objections?

Some reasons mentioned for not doing SNAP:

“I don’t have enough time.” This is my favorite. The person who says this is saying they don’t have time for their customer. With some coaching, we can help this person know that taking time for the customer is critical to success; and, for the selfish person — the one who doesn’t care that much about the customer — we can help them understand that using SNAP will actually save them time.

“It takes too long.” It is true that doing something new will take some extra time. However, using SNAP in plug and play mode is almost effortless. As you use SNAP, and find that you have bought back time, you will have extra time to invest in making SNAP more effective for you. SNAP takes 30 to 60 seconds. Those who say it takes too long don’t know what they are talking about.

“I don’t know what the status of things are.” Well, if you don’t know the status of things, then what does your customer know? You know more than your customer. Power users of SNAP will toss out multiple SNAP messages; this is especially true when the status of things are uncertain or change quickly.

“Things change too fast for me to accurately inform customers.” Those who say this may be afraid to make simple decisions. Of course, things change. That does not mean we can’t know what is happening now — in terms of status or timing. Go ahead, and make a commitment, let your customer know what is going on — and if things truly change quickly, then promise your customer a follow up SNAP. The amount of time it takes to do this is much less than the time it takes for you to react to customers and their questions.

“They already know, why tell them again.” This is usually said of repeat customers or internal customers. They know what we do, so why take time to tell them? Whether you think your customers know what is going on or not, your work for them is still part of a workflow. Add SNAPs into your workflows. Go ahead, tell them what they already know. The whole idea is to connect with your customers. If you are focused on connecting with customers, then so what if they know or think they know what you are doing for them. Go ahead and tell them with a careful, thoughtful, conversational SNAP.

“Ok, I’ll do it; I save my SNAPs for the end of the day.” This person is basically saying that they give up — other objections having failed, you will likely hear this one. Don’t accept it. This is a bad compromise. Recall our earlier thoughts on real time. End of the day is not real time. Go for real time.

“I don’t understand.” This objection is from someone who does not want to take time to think. SNAP does not require hours and hours of thinking, it does take some investment, but that investment is easy to make. The person who says they don’t understand may need your assistance to better understand who the customer is and how important the customer is to your business.

“What difference does it make?” This person is similar to the prior one; they need to know how important the customer is. Perhaps you have an opportunity to align incentives. Usually employees or customer service providers who don’t connect what they are doing to customer outcomes have some form of misaligned incentive.

They don’t get the WIIFM of the proposition — WIIFM = What’s In It For Me.

“They will just ask more questions.”
“It’s too much information.”
“If they really want to know, they will ask.”
“It’s a waste of time.”

You will hear these and many other objections. Listen to them and respond with care. Objections are a way for the other person to tell you:
1. They don’t get it.
2. They don’t care.
3. They truly don’t understand.
4. They are resisting for some reason.

Use workshop opportunities to identify objections, the reasons for the objections and work through bringing others to a greater understanding of the importance of your customers.

When working SNAP with a team or small group, an excellent educational exercise is to hold small group discussions using these and other obstacles as topics. You will quickly know who gets it and who doesn’t. Seeing these different positions with members of your team or your leaders, or your business partners, allows you to more easily hone in on any customer service communication gaps.

Make a point of discussing WIIFM with your team. You can do this by asking some questions focused of individual team members. Feel free to customize or add other questions based on your team, your industry or the specific WIIFM challenge you need to solve. Some questions to ask:

Have you ever struggled to get the customer to understand that you are really working on ____ for them?

Have you ever wondered why your customer’s ask such silly questions?

Have you ever wished your customers would stop interrupting what you are doing so you can just get your work done?

Have you ever wished you had more time available to you during the day?

Have you ever wished your customers had a better understanding of what was going on with ___ ?

Have you ever wished your customers saw you and your co-workers as a more integrated team?

Have you ever wondered what you can do to get better customer service scores?

These and other similar questions are great ones to use when working with your team or co-workers. Use them with yourself, as well. What can you do to improve your relationship with your customers? There are probably many options that will come to mind as these questions get answered.

One absolutely great, fantastic option is SNAP.

Insight: As you consider SNAP and work through objections, start by just looking at your use of time. Most likely you will find two things:

1. Objecting to and avoiding the use of SNAP on a regular basis takes more time than adopting SNAP. We all don’t need to become level five masters. Avoiding the most basic use of SNAP takes more time than just using it.

2. Not using SNAP and dealing with customer questions, research, investigations, follow up, complaints, criticisms, less than desirable customer service scores all takes significantly more time than just pushing SNAP out of the box and doing a plug and play. Know that SNAP all by itself does not eliminate service failures or the need to deal with customer issues. However, it can dramatically reduce service failure occurrences. Let’s understand that many customer complaints are not related to errors or processes that break or products not delivered or service not performed. Too many are directly related to a gap in expectations. If you have investigated customer complaints, the worst ones to quantify and correct for the customer are related to expectation gaps.

“I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems.” Quote attributed to James Cash Penney, founder of J. C. Penney Company.

While there are most certainly 10,000 reasons not to do something, focus on the one or two really good reasons out there to actually engage, initiate, implement.

“What a concept! I’ve often been frustrated with balancing the desire for constant updates on projects, yet challenged with not wanting to waste valuable time or provide unnecessary emails too soon before projects are completed. What a difference it’s made by proactively applying this simple technique to diminish any concerns that all is being taken care of,” says Monica Treacy, retail marketing consultant.

Be material! Be relevant! Be competent!

Use SNAP to attack the Gap. Be a doer. Make SNAP happen. Run past the objections as fast as possible and take others with you.

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SNAP’ED

This entry is part 8 of 13 in the series SNAP - Draft

SNAP’ED stands for: SNAP the Extended Dimension; using the extended dimension is one way to get a big step closer to mastery.

“Because we want to provide good service for our customers, we often promise more than we can deliver. In many cases, firms are promising things beyond what anyone has seen or experienced. … We’ve raised their expectations too high, so we can’t blame our customers for being unhappy when we don’t keep our word.”
… from Customers For Life, by Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown

What can we do to really manage these expectations?

So far we have covered the basic version of SNAP. There is also an Extended Dimension. The Extended Dimension comes after you have used SNAP for a while. It is part of mastering SNAP. You will discover that simple SNAP statements can be mixed and matched, linked with other SNAP statements, used in a variety of sequences or combined in other ways to greatly extend how your use of SNAP. More importantly, this will let you leverage your SNAP customer impact.

Here are several ways to push SNAP to the limit.

When you toss out a SNAP statement, include a preview of when a follow-up SNAP will take place. This approach is very effective with longer, or more complex work flows because those work flows will have several spots that are good and natural candidates for SNAP statements. Using follow up SNAPs also work especially well with customer relationships that span longer periods of time. This gives you pre-set opportunities (commitments) for getting back to your customer. Keeping your customer informed is a great way to reinforce expectations, drive customer perception and improve your service levels.

SNAP even when nothing has changed. The power here is in the act of SNAP, not in the new information. The power is in the act of connecting with your customer. This can be done with both short- or long-term customer relationships. If your customer is waiting five minutes for a sandwich or waiting 20 minutes for a table at a restaurant, a SNAP — even though nothing has changed — lets the customer know you still have them in mind and value them. If your customer relationship is longer spanning several months, these SNAP statements become even more powerful. Our customers want to know they are valued, and we continue to think of them.

Include others on your team when you toss a SNAP to your customer. This can be done easily with SNAP messages that are emailed, since email is such a dynamic and real time way of communicating. For example, if you and I are members of the same team, you can send a SNAP message to one of our customers and include me, your team mate on the message. I then respond to all, meaning I reply so that the customer gets my response and in my note I make a point of saying what a great job you did. This is just one way of doing a reply. Also, use the team sharing to confirm a SNAP from a team member; responding to your team member; for this to be effective, include the customer.

This tag teaming can be focused on any number of things, such as, confirming and / or talking up a team mate, your manager, your company, your product, the customer’s purchase, the customer’s choice regarding some aspect of their relationship with you or your company. Tag teaming also can be effectively aimed at addressing other concerns the customer might be experiencing or voicing.

Link one SNAP to another. This technique is simple enough. Use one statement to link or hook right into another. This can be done as noted above by tag teaming with a co-worker, and it can be done by tag teaming your own messages. An example of this might be using a standard SNAP message focused on status and next steps, and then following up with a message that contains a testimonial important to your customer. Or, your linked SNAP might contain information about resources, support groups or similar products. We see this happen very easily in the automated world with auto-responders. This can be easily adapted to more simple person to person communications and to one on one emailed follow ups. Auto-responders are not needed for us to be effective with a technique like this.

SNAP in real time. Some customer interactions are real time, so SNAP happens in the here and now. For other interactions, you may have discretion in timing; don’t delay, move your SNAP to real time. Avoid end of day batching. Real time is particularly effective when your customer is right in front of you. SNAP now.

Include closing questions. Don’t assume the relationship is either going well or is going to end well. Ask. At the end of your SNAP statement ask for feedback from your customer. Ask them if there is anything else they need. In the world of automation, with web based purchases and web based customer relationships you may have received a post action, emailed customer satisfaction survey. Using closing questions is not about doing a customer satisfaction survey. It is about staying focused on your immediate relationship and asking specifically if there is anything else needed, asking if the customer needs anything else as the immediate service is brought to completion.

Another way to use closing questions is to purposefully ask questions to which the customer will give a positive answer. You are after a positive answer to positive aspects of the customer relationship, the product or your service. Your goal here is to get the customer to say “yes”. When the customer says “yes” they must choose to say “yes” and that means they are taking an action, hearing themselves share a positive message — this reinforces for the customer that they have had a positive experience.

In addition to using closing questions, use a closing statement. Share your basic, simple SNAP message, then close it with a strong and powerful aspect of the Extended Dimension. Tell your customer that you have fulfilled your commitment, met your part of the bargain, kept your promise, delivered on the expectation. While this sounds very much like bragging about what you have done, what you are really doing is informing your customer. You are helping to support and manage key expectations that drive or form your customer’s perception.

Consider a key advertising principle. “Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; then, tell them what you told them.” Watch or listen to any commercial on the TV or radio. You will hear a message that literally tells you what you are going to be told, you are then told the message and then you are told what you were just told. This is both simple and complex all at the same time. Meaning, it is simple to do, but difficult to get all the right pieces in the right places.

Why does this work? It works because, as customers, we don’t work to understand what is going on. We accept what is going on at an intuitive or gut level. Think about any experience you have had as a customer. You don’t study what is going on. It happens. You experience it. You accept it.

On the flip side, those providing the service or the product study very hard to make what is happening a great and meaningful experience for you. The provider works hard. The receiver does not work.

As the provider of service, do your hard work. Extend your SNAP statements. Make some of them mini commercials. Advertise what you are doing, what you did, what you plan to do. As you use the Extended Dimension push your self. SNAP statements can be thought of as short, to the point, and frequently shared mini commercials.

Undoubtedly, there are many other ways to extend your use of SNAP. Find them and use them. The ideas shared above are just a starting point.

•    Preview when a follow-up SNAP will take place.
•    SNAP even when nothing has changed.
•    Include others on your team in the SNAP.
•    Link one SNAP to another.
•    SNAP in real time.
•    Include closing questions.
•    Ask questions that will get a positive answer from the customer.
•    Use a closing statement.

Use the Extended Dimension of SNAP to leverage your customer relationships and significantly improve your service levels. When used consistently, with thought and purpose, you will find this is very powerful stuff.

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