Latest / Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders / 203: Why Customers Are Revolting

Transcript

203: Why Customers Are Revolting · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 1:03
  Hello, revolutionaries.
• 1:05
  Welcome back to the Customer Service Revolution podcast with John DiJulius I'm Denise Thompson.
• 1:11
  And today, John, are you ready to talk about some of the not so good things happening?
• 1:17
  Some of your favorite companies that are filing for bankruptcy.
• 1:23
  Well, those aren't my favorite.
• 1:25
  What are the following companies have in common?
• 1:27
  TGI Fridays, Red Lobster, Joanne Fabrics, Spirit Airlines, Big Lots, Hooters, and Forever 21.
• 1:34
  Just to name a few that have filed for bankruptcy in the last few months.
• 1:39
  What do they have in common?
• 1:41
  None of them were ever known for great customer service.
• 1:44
  So that old adage that a weak economy exposes companies.
• 1:48
  that are lousy at customer service.
• 1:50
  You don't think all of them at one time were...
• 1:54
  TGA Fridays used to be a great place to go years ago.
• 1:58
  You know, I never hung out there, but I've never seen them used as an example for good customer service.
• 2:04
  Did you find that to be the case?
• 2:06
  not say in recent years, I think back in the day, unless maybe it was the cocktails, but I seem to remember TGI Fridays being decent for service, quick.
• 2:21
  But I think it's changed in recent years and they've closed up locations.
• 2:26
  It's slowly been happening.
• 2:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:29
  Maybe that's the only one.
• 2:30
  I don't know of any of them that were ever used as an example.
• 2:35
  You rarely, if ever, find a company that was great at customer service that gets impacted the way these companies do.
• 2:43
  Yeah, Joanne's, didn't you have a relative that worked at Joanne Fabrics?
• 2:48
  I did, I still don't know if they were good at customer service.
• 2:52
  There wasn't a place I shopped and I never saw them in the top of any reports, retail reports, just like TGI Fridays, and they're the only closest I'll come if I'm not a
• 3:01
  customer of theirs is reading the American Customer Satisfaction Index, top ratings of fast casual or retail stores, or the NPS ratings.
• 3:13
  which I've never seen any of those brands, a couple of those brands, Spirit Airlines, I've seen in the actual bottom.
• 3:20
  So that was no surprise.
• 3:21
  So customers are revolting.
• 3:23
  And it's not just because of customer service, but tip flation, shrink flation.
• 3:29
  Yeah, trickflation, inflation.
• 3:32
  All this has caused an experience gap.
• 3:35
  The experience gap is when consumers, customers, clients pay more and they're getting less.
• 3:40
  So this has led to the customer revolt, where consumers have colluded, is that a word?
• 3:47
  Colluded?
• 3:48
  In a phenomenon known as the underconsumption.
• 3:52
  It was a trend.
• 3:53
  It's a trend with Gen Zs and Millennials.
• 3:55
  No Buy 2025.
• 3:57
  And on February 8th, there was an economic blackout day called by the People's Union USA, a movement advocating for economic resistance, government accountability, and corporate
• 4:14
  reform.
• 4:15
  So, you know, I don't know what impacts it's had, but you know.
• 4:19
  when customers are coming together and trying to do economic blackouts and under consumption and not spend money sends a sign that they've had enough.
• 4:30
  How are you doing with it?
• 4:31
  How's your consumption?
• 4:33
  I've been conservative.
• 4:35
  think I'm one of them.
• 4:37
  just, you know, watching where we're spending and all that.
• 4:40
  Professionally and personally.
• 4:43
  But I'm certainly not going to reward any company that's lousy.
• 4:46
  Excuse me.
• 4:46
  I've had a friend recently talk about being upset with Amazon, Jeff Bezos, political reasons.
• 4:54
  So going to stop using Amazon, going to stop using Whole Foods because of it.
• 4:59
  And I think about it, I'm like, Amazon does such a great job.
• 5:02
  Giving up Amazon would be a really difficult thing for me.
• 5:06
  Yeah, mean, know, so that goes on the other side.
• 5:08
  Amazon is the easiest company to do business with, bar none, right?
• 5:13
  They're not the cheapest by far anymore.
• 5:16
  I don't know if you've ever heard this.
• 5:19
  I've wrote about it in years past.
• 5:21
  When Amazon says they sell, and you ask people, know, convenience and both, they say they sell time.
• 5:28
  So...
• 5:28
  The average Amazon user, I don't know what that means.
• 5:31
  You, me, I don't know how much you have to spend to be the average, but the average Amazon customer, they say, saves 75 hours a year in time.
• 5:41
  So think about that.
• 5:42
  Right now you need some stuff and you're get in your car, traffic, find a parking spot, go into that big box, hope to find
• 5:52
  an employee that will then send you to aisle 26 and you don't find it there and then ring out and get back in your car and do it.
• 6:01
  So 70, that's three days of our life by being able to order it online and get it later today or tomorrow.
• 6:10
  That's when you make price.
• 6:13
  and convenience irrelevant.
• 6:15
  That's the opposite.
• 6:16
  And this is why we don't see Kmart on every corner like we used to.
• 6:20
  But listen, being great at customer experience doesn't insulate you if you take your eye off the ball.
• 6:26
  So over 40 years, Starbucks and Southwest has dominated their industries of what made their brands unique to all their competitors, the customer experience they consistently
• 6:35
  deliver.
• 6:36
  But now they're both in the news for struggling, losing it because they lost sight of what made them great.
• 6:42
  What made Starbucks great?
• 6:43
  They were the third place that we could go to outside of work and home that we can just get a breather from.
• 6:53
  Read a book, clean up your email, conduct an interview, order it over 170,000 different ways.
• 7:00
  The baristas would write our names on it, call our names, and get to know us and remember our drinks.
• 7:04
  And sometimes they'd write a cute...
• 7:06
  Motivational message, all that made Starbucks that place.
• 7:10
  Well, you know, since the pandemic, all they do, they focused on was to-go orders, mobile orders, and drive-through.
• 7:17
  And they shrunk their in-store experience, they're reducing their menu.
• 7:23
  And you know, they, you know, it's it's really hurting.
• 7:27
  They stopped writing names.
• 7:29
  and their customer experience shrunk.
• 7:30
  Now, I think it's Brian and Nicol, or Nicoli, the new CEO from Chipotle, he's going back to all that, and increasing in-store experience and having people write again and having
• 7:42
  all that.
• 7:43
  And hopefully it'll work, because it's a great brand.
• 7:47
  But Southwest, same thing.
• 7:49
  Historically, they've been recognized as the
• 7:51
  most profitable airline, you know, what made them unique?
• 7:55
  Open seating, free check bag, no rescheduling or cancellation fees.
• 8:01
  And the nicest crew in the airline by far, in the US airline by far.
• 8:05
  But they've moved away from many of those things.
• 8:08
  And their experience of backlash because, you know, if you're gonna charge for fees, which I have no problem them doing,
• 8:15
  and you're gonna not have open seating anymore, then why shouldn't I go with the Delta or American Airlines where they have an advantage over Southwest in those things?
• 8:27
  Now you've worked with Starbucks in the past.
• 8:31
  Starbucks, think one of the things they've come under fire for of late is also the employee experience.
• 8:38
  Yeah, I mean, you know, the unionization.
• 8:41
  It seems like whenever Howard Schultz steps down, that, you know, they take their eye off what's most important, he comes back.
• 8:47
  It sounds like, you know, this pastime was begrudgingly, you know, only temporarily.
• 8:52
  I am excited to see what the new CEO is going to do.
• 8:55
  And I hope both these companies make it and make it back to what they were.
• 8:59
  So just being known for customer experience.
• 9:02
  Is not enough if you take your eye off the that experience internal external It's gonna it may be worse because our you know when you have a great customer experience It's like over
• 9:13
  promising right if we go to the Ritz-Carlton We expect an amazing experience, and if that's where they cut short on that's gonna be more noticeable than if someone that's
• 9:24
  not known for customer experience doesn't deliver an exceptional experience every time.
• 9:28
  And especially in good times, we tend to take our eye off the ball, or we aren't looking at things from the customer's viewpoint.
• 9:35
  We're looking at it from maybe the corporate office.
• 9:38
  Yeah.
• 9:39
  Yeah.
• 9:39
  Are you really looking at your customer experience from your customer's viewpoint?
• 9:43
  Yeah, so several years ago, I had an epiphany.
• 9:45
  I went to the dentist's office and, you know, just for an annual checkup.
• 9:50
  And I just, that really made me realize what employees see and what patients see.
• 9:55
  that, in the exam room, they had a TV playing, which was a nice experience, right?
• 10:00
  However, the TV, which I assume was for the patients, was on like headline news.
• 10:06
  They didn't ask me what I'd like to, I would have put on ESPN or something.
• 10:10
  something that would entertain me while I wait or during my 30-minute checkup.
• 10:15
  But I was depressed by the time I left because what had my new show?
• 10:20
  So that wasn't a good experience.
• 10:22
  And then when they had me recline, I look up and I see their ceiling tile, and their ceiling tile's cracked.
• 10:30
  God, the heater, where air or heat comes out, had some dust.
• 10:35
  It doesn't look like it's been dusted in a while.
• 10:37
  And these are things that I have to stare at for 35 minutes.
• 10:43
  But if you're not your own customer, and you don't literally sit in the customer's seat, if you don't call your call center and listen and see how hard or how long and...
• 10:56
  how to manage through the voicemail maze or when they pick up and that.
• 11:01
  If you don't go to your website, you gotta be an undercover customer.
• 11:05
  You gotta go to your website or have someone that goes to your website that doesn't have your knowledge.
• 11:11
  So, and they have to find certain things.
• 11:14
  That's where you're like, man, this is hard.
• 11:17
  Like I've gone to our website and I'm like, how come I can't find this?
• 11:20
  And if I can't find it and I have...
• 11:22
  know, advantage to what to look for, our customers will never be able to.
• 11:26
  So, you know, you literally have to, you know, whatever that looks like in your business, you have to sit in the customer's shoes, you know, to see what they see.
• 11:37
  Because in an employee, you're not looking from the same metaphoric and literal sense.
• 11:42
  So when you go to the salons, how objective are you?
• 11:46
  Are you looking at everything?
• 11:47
  I try to, I mean, I'm kind of OCD, so something that I hate in businesses, I don't know why they do it, and that we've been guilty of.
• 11:55
  You know when you have two doors to open and the left is locked, right?
• 12:00
  I never understand that.
• 12:02
  And when we've ever been guilty of it, it's just because whoever opened forgot to unlock both doors.
• 12:08
  So I always open the left door and...
• 12:11
  I don't remember the last time I was locked, but I do that for that reason.
• 12:15
  But when you're sitting getting your haircut, what are you staring at?
• 12:18
  You're staring at the corner.
• 12:19
  You're staring at things that no one else is seeing or hearing.
• 12:23
  So I try to, I try to be that customer.
• 12:26
  Are we undercover in our own businesses and through anything, but calling your own call center or.
• 12:34
  communicating with them digitally or all those things.
• 12:37
  I'll text our call center.
• 12:41
  We have a number now that you could text just to see how quickly they respond.
• 12:46
  And sometimes I don't get a response that quickly.
• 12:49
  What's your opinion on mystery shoppers for this kind of thing?
• 12:52
  know you recently were
• 12:54
  A mystery shopper for one of the stores we're looking, working with.
• 12:58
  Yeah, I think it's great.
• 12:59
  I think it's really good and it's better when you have people who are outside of your business that don't speak your language, that don't know anything.
• 13:11
  And there's the explanation of the curse of knowledge where people use terminology of their business or industry that
• 13:20
  laymans don't understand.
• 13:21
  Why do I have to check in online and then you come in and I get there and you ask me for all that information again?
• 13:28
  So different things.
• 13:30
  I think mystery shoppers are great if you can arrange it, but even having people call your call center, your contact center, things like that.
• 13:39
  I remember we used to do mystery shoppers in the salon and we would give people a list of all the things that should happen.
• 13:47
  And when they would rate us at the end, we were rated lower by them than by anyone else because they knew everything that was supposed to happen.
• 13:56
  yeah, which was good.
• 13:58
  You know, I'm fine with.
• 14:01
  Yeah, yeah, but you know, it's strange that we went to, I wish we still did this, but we went to colleges in the Cleveland area and I contacted our marketing professors and said,
• 14:14
  hey, I got a real life scenario.
• 14:16
  Let me come in, share with them our business.
• 14:19
  We'll give them, all your students, free gift certificate to John Roberts.
• 14:22
  They can go experience it.
• 14:24
  We get a survey and you get, you know, a live case study, right?
• 14:29
  You know, that's out of the book.
• 14:30
  So it was a win-win-win situation.
• 14:33
  What I never thought that we would get, Lindsay came from it, a lot of employees, they were students there and they, I don't liked it so much.
• 14:42
  my presentation and or their experience that they applied and I think they applied just to be a temporary job while they were still in school until they graduated and How long has
• 14:54
  Lindsey been with us?
• 14:55
  Oh my gosh, Lindsay's 20 years?
• 14:59
  in the more than 20s, which you just celebrated your 29th, 29th anniversary a couple of weeks ago.
• 15:08
  And Dave just celebrated his 12th.
• 15:10
  Those are big numbers, 29 years.
• 15:14
  Yeah.
• 15:15
  But you never know where you get staff from.
• 15:17
  I was fine when they, know, we, and Elsie Klug
• 15:24
  yes.
• 15:25
  Yeah, and others all came from those days of going into colleges and having them.
• 15:31
  And I never thought that was was never an ulterior motive.
• 15:35
  I didn't think, you know, that that and they were all great employees.
• 15:39
  One that stayed with us for, you know, going on 25 years is one of our most valuable employees.
• 15:44
  So you never know where you're to get great employees from.
• 15:48
  So, and I think employees look for greatness, right?
• 15:50
  They look for companies that are doing great things and want to be a part of that.
• 15:55
  But speaking of greatness, you brought up recently the SAG award speech by Timothy Chalamet.
• 16:03
  Timothee Chalamet.
• 16:05
  I did, I did.
• 16:07
  Very moving.
• 16:08
  Did you?
• 16:09
  I was surprised that some people criticized him for it and said, and I'm gonna play what he said, but that's something that should be thought but never spoken out loud.
• 16:21
  Well, it may not be as humble as some people would like to expect him to be.
• 16:27
  think he was bragging.
• 16:28
  He didn't say he was great.
• 16:29
  He said he watched.
• 16:30
  Well, let's listen.
• 16:32
  The classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me.
• 16:39
  But the truth is, this was five and a half years of my life.
• 16:42
  I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr.
• 16:45
  Bob Dylan, a true American hero.
• 16:47
  And it was the honor of a lifetime playing him.
• 16:50
  It's an honor I share with Monica, Elle, Edward, the entire cast who in a genre doing a biopic that could be perhaps tired.
• 16:57
  Everyone gave it their all.
• 16:58
  So I'm deeply grateful to them.
• 17:00
  And lastly, I can't downplay the significance of this award because it means the most to me.
• 17:05
  And I know we're in a subjective business, but the truth is I'm really in pursuit of greatness.
• 17:11
  I know people don't usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.
• 17:14
  I'm inspired by the greats.
• 17:15
  I'm inspired by the greats here tonight.
• 17:16
  I'm as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps.
• 17:22
  And I want to be up there.
• 17:23
  So I'm deeply grateful to that.
• 17:25
  This doesn't signify that, but it's a little more fuel.
• 17:27
  It's a little more ammo to keep going.
• 17:28
  Thank you so much.
• 17:29
  I love that.
• 17:30
  I don't think people are daring enough to put things out there.
• 17:37
  And if it's true,
• 17:38
  I don't think we should all just be saying stuff just for the, cause it sounds good.
• 17:42
  But, you know, he put that out there.
• 17:44
  He didn't say he was great.
• 17:45
  He says he's in pursuit of greatness, like these certain people.
• 17:50
  And I love that.
• 17:51
  I I just think, I don't think we dream big enough.
• 17:54
  love that phrase though, in pursuit of greatness.
• 17:57
  And whatever it is you're passionate about, to be in pursuit of greatness.
• 18:02
  I don't even know if you know this, I only speak, I know you know this, I only speak on customer and employee experience, right, leadership with regard to that.
• 18:11
  The only time I'll step out is for schools.
• 18:14
  And my presentation is choosing greatness.
• 18:17
  And that's my topic for students.
• 18:19
  I love talking to students of any age range and that, you know.
• 18:24
  greatness doesn't choose you, you choose it.
• 18:27
  And I think we all think, you know, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, you know.
• 18:31
  Steve Jobs, all the, you know, there's so many.
• 18:34
  There's not so many, but the ones that, that's why I love movies and documentaries on the greats, that were born with something.
• 18:41
  And then when you really investigate, it's what they did behind the scenes.
• 18:45
  No one talks about the backstory to get there and to stay there.
• 18:49
  And so that's what my choosing greatness for kids are, is you'll find habits.
• 18:54
  And one of my favorite quotes to that is, most people aren't willing to do what it takes.
• 19:01
  Because it's crazy of what it takes to be great.
• 19:04
  And most people aren't willing to do it.
• 19:07
  And that's fine, that's fine.
• 19:08
  But if you are and you wanna put it out there, now you gotta find out what it takes.
• 19:12
  These people weren't great by accident.
• 19:14
  They chose to be great.
• 19:16
  Alright, two things.
• 19:17
  One, you have great stories about Johnny when he was younger and starting to wrestle and what you told him it would take to be great and what he did.
• 19:26
  And two, why do you reserve that for students?
• 19:30
  Why don't you do that for other groups?
• 19:32
  You know, I guess I do a small part in my closing.
• 19:35
  You know, it is the Johnny story in a keynote.
• 19:40
  And I do it in our academies and stuff.
• 19:42
  I spend a day, I call it living an extraordinary life, so countless others do.
• 19:46
  And then what it takes to overachieve, right, to be great.
• 19:50
  So I do visit that a little bit.
• 19:53
  I think it's a great opportunity for students, it's not too late for them.
• 19:57
  Is it too late for the rest of us?
• 20:00
  Is there an age limit to greatness?
• 20:02
  Is that what you're saying?
• 20:03
  No, no, no, I just think the older we get, the more cynical we become.
• 20:09
  Here's a quote, I just looked it up, that I was trying to say.
• 20:12
  A lot of people are pretty delusional on what it takes to be the best.
• 20:17
  It is a level of commitment most sane people aren't willing to do.
• 20:22
  That's by Mark Perry, a former NCAA championship wrestler.
• 20:27
  Love that quote.
• 20:27
  And it is, like, you know, when you tell people what you do to get where you are, they think that's absurd.
• 20:33
  It is.
• 20:33
  Maybe it could be a topic of a future livestream.
• 20:37
  or podcasts.
• 20:38
  think, know, choosing greatness, I would love to talk about, because there's those habits.
• 20:44
  Yeah, so listeners, if you're interested in that, let us know.
• 20:47
  Put a comment in and we'll come up with a new podcast and maybe a live stream workshop to go along with it.
• 20:54
  All right.
• 20:54
  Alright, thanks John.
• 20:55
  That's it for this episode.
• 20:58
  We look forward to visiting with you revolutionaries again in the future.