Latest / Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders / 234: Mastering the Certainty Business
Transcript
- 0:58Welcome back to the Customer Service Revolution podcast, where we talk about how to turn ordinary transactions into unforgettable experiences.
- 1:06I'm Denise Thompson, and I am here with John DiJulius And today we're talking about something John calls being in the certainty business.
- 1:16Uncertainty is one of the biggest sources of anxiety in life and in business.
- 1:20Studies even show that people would rather get an electric shock immediately than sit in the unknown waiting to see what happens.
- 1:28That's how deeply we crave certainty.
- 1:31And yet most organizations spend almost all of their training, about 98%, on technical skills and only a sliver on the human side, empathy, reassurance, and communication.
- 1:43The result?
- 1:44Customers and employees are often left wondering what's happening next.
- 1:49John's going to talk about why it's such a costly mistake and
- 1:55how great companies build trust by removing uncertainty from every part of the experience.
- 2:00Whether you lead a team, run a business, or just want to communicate better, this episode will challenge you to think differently about what people really need from you.
- 2:09Not perfection, but certainty.
- 2:12John, you've often said every great business is in the certainty business.
- 2:17Let's start with that.
- 2:19What does that mean to you?
- 2:20Yeah, I mean, as you pointed out, number one cause of anxiety is uncertainty in all areas of life.
- 2:26We like predictability.
- 2:28It's why so many people don't like change.
- 2:32We drive the same way to work every day.
- 2:34We do the same workouts, eat the same meals, even stay in bad relationships because we would rather know what we're getting.
- 2:45than the unknown.
- 2:45The unknown drives people crazy.
- 2:48So, right, right, right.
- 2:52So.
- 2:53think it's such a powerful cause of anxiety?
- 2:57Well, I mean, that's it.
- 2:58It's just the unknown.
- 2:59People hate the unknown.
- 3:02So in business, from the external customer to the internal customer, providing people with certainty.
- 3:10And there's certain limitations, right?
- 3:12I think the two biggest industries I've heard and read that cause uncertainty is finance and health.
- 3:22And so, you know, how can you provide certainty in those?
- 3:26In a way, you can't, right?
- 3:28If you're going for an MRI today on something that could be scary, the radiologist or technician that's putting you through the MRI cannot tell you after that everything is
- 3:42going to come back, thumbs up, and you have nothing to worry about.
- 3:46But the certainty that that technician can provide you is tell you, okay, we've just scanned you.
- 3:53Now I'm sending your X-rays off to our radiology department and they're gonna read them and get them back to your doctor by 3 p.m.
- 4:04today.
- 4:05That's the certainty that they can provide you.
- 4:08which isn't the perfect answer, but there's less ambiguity, there's less unknown.
- 4:16Now you know what next is.
- 4:18And next is that your doctor's gonna be contacting you or you need to contact your doctor by end of today.
- 4:24And in the meantime, you go home and Google everything related to what it could be.
- 4:30I mentioned at the beginning about a study that you've cited in the past that people would rather get an electric shock than wait in uncertainty about whether they'll get one.
- 4:40What does it say about how our brains handle the unknown
- 4:44Yeah, I forget.
- 4:45I know it's in my book, my most recent book, The Employee Experience Revolution, the study, but it was basically they brought a group of people in an auditorium.
- 4:55I think they paid them, but the group of people didn't know why they were there and they had to be there 20, 30 minutes.
- 5:02And when they got situated, seated, they said, in the next 20 minutes, half of you will get an electric shock in your seat.
- 5:12It won't be the most pleasant feeling.
- 5:15I don't think anybody's going to be burned to death.
- 5:18And you have one of two options.
- 5:19You can roll the dice and see if you're the lucky or unlucky 50 % or you can opt in right now and get the electric shock.
- 5:28Get it out of the way.
- 5:31And the majority chose the electric shock versus rolling the dice and seeing if they were the unlucky or lucky.
- 5:40Yeah, which people would rather have bad news than no news, which is kind of messed up.
- 5:45But it's the unknown.
- 5:47We hate the unknown.
- 5:49The unknown drives us crazy.
- 5:50The unknown creates, makes our imagination run away with itself.
- 5:55All those things.
- 5:56So, you know, how do we bring that back to to business?
- 5:59And Chris Voss, you've heard him, read him, seen him.
- 6:04author of Never Split the Difference.
- 6:06He talks about, he was the head FBI negotiator back in the day, and he talks about examples of when him or his team provided certainty.
- 6:19They're dealing with terrorists, people that took the bank robbers that had
- 6:24you know, hostages and that when him and his team would speak to the terrorist and get their demands.
- 6:35And then when they say, all right, let me take your demands to my boss and I'll get back to you within the hour.
- 6:41Less and they did that and they followed up within the hour, less bad things happen.
- 6:47But when they were more vague,
- 6:49And they said, all right, let me take your demands to my boss, but didn't have a specific turnaround time.
- 6:56That's when the terrorists would, after waiting a while, whatever a while is, think they weren't being taken serious enough.
- 7:07They would do something to demonstrate you need to take me serious.
- 7:12And it was usually bad stuff.
- 7:14Yeah, I imagine they're also thinking on the other side, they're planning something to stop me.
- 7:21And you're getting concerned about what's happening, who's coming in,
- 7:25So Chris Voss said in his book, make your world more predictable in tiny little ways.
- 7:31The people you're communicating with don't always know when you're going to have good news, but they shouldn't wonder when you're going to communicate with them.
- 7:40When you don't communicate, the people you lead will be left in uncertainty.
- 7:45Don't let people wonder when you're going to communicate with them.
- 7:49Be fearless about having nothing to say.
- 7:51I like that.
- 7:52Be fearless about having nothing to say.
- 7:55So yeah, in business, updates, regular updates sometimes means you don't have nothing to update, but just want to let you know that everything's still on pace.
- 8:06Whatever that may be is really, really important.
- 8:09So you're saying in small daily interactions also, so this isn't just when people are making big financial decisions or there is a health issue or a customer crisis.
- 8:21Exactly.
- 8:22so you think about the great companies we'd all, I think, agree on, Amazon, they are in the certainty business in ways that we may not realize.
- 8:34But as soon as you place your order, you get an email.
- 8:38As soon as your order ships, you get an email or a text.
- 8:43As soon as your order is in transit or arrives.
- 8:47you get an email so you know it's at your house, it's at your office.
- 8:51Those are all certainties.
- 8:53I just had something that happened on Walmart.
- 8:58And I mean, I guess I'm blaming Walmart.
- 9:00This has happened several times.
- 9:02So I place an order to be delivered and it doesn't come.
- 9:08And I'm like, what, where's my food?
- 9:12I'm hungry.
- 9:12And I didn't...
- 9:15hit the additional thing, so it's still in my shopping cart.
- 9:19And so it must have asked me, I must have hit what I thought was place, and it asked me an additional question that I left the screen.
- 9:28So, you know, they didn't reach back out to me and say, you know, you know, do you want to submit this order or whatever?
- 9:38And so, you know, things like that, they didn't keep me in the certainty business.
- 9:42I abandon my carts, if you will.
- 9:45Yeah, it seems a fine line sometimes.
- 9:47What is too much in those circumstances as well?
- 9:50I mean, think a nudge is good, helpful, especially in your case where, you were waiting for it to be delivered and didn't realize it hadn't processed versus everything that's set
- 10:01up with AI right now where you put something in your cart, but maybe you weren't ready to purchase it this time.
- 10:08And then every hour you're getting a message, hey, don't forget you have this, hey.
- 10:13Did you know if you order this today?
- 10:15right, I think one time is good.
- 10:18Pressure sales is a different story.
- 10:20yeah, no matter what business you're in, you need to communicate with your client.
- 10:29And that's where we go with the term go ugly early.
- 10:34And if...
- 10:37If I'm not going to hit the date I promised, if it's out of stock, whatever the situation is, we got to communicate.
- 10:45And it happens all the time where, you you'll ask someone, you know, was the client mad?
- 10:50No, they didn't bring it up.
- 10:51No, no.
- 10:51You know, they're going to be mad.
- 10:53you know, communicate.
- 10:54And we've used New Day USA, a mortgage company and their VU, veteran opt out as an example.
- 11:00a bad example and a good example, their account executives weren't communicating with their veterans, their customers as regularly as they should have.
- 11:10sometimes subconsciously, because it was bad news, the closing date moved a day or two.
- 11:18And the 23-year-old account executive doesn't understand the ramifications
- 11:23of a closing date moving from December 1st to December 2nd or 3rd, maybe because they've never moved themselves or been responsible for being the moving.
- 11:37so they don't want to upset the veteran, have the veteran yell at them.
- 11:42It might be the second, third, fourth time that it's moved.
- 11:46So they don't say anything.
- 11:47But we all know what even one day of a
- 11:53closing date can the ramifications it can have from you needing to be out of your, know, wherever you're renting or living, you have people moving in, you set up movers, Wi-Fi to
- 12:05shut off and start and all those things.
- 12:09So that's where, you know, New Day put into place that their account executives had to communicate with their clients, veterans every day.
- 12:17And sometimes that was just
- 12:19Again, still looking good for December 1st.
- 12:22Everything is looking, do you have any questions?
- 12:24But being in the certainty business or going ugly early and saying, veteran Thompson, unfortunately due to things out of our control, whatever, something has changed or we need
- 12:36more information or whatever that may mean.
- 12:40So you brought up a good point with the agents not realizing what the veteran on the other side is going through the exactly day in the life.
- 12:52something we talked about, or I'd mentioned at the very beginning was training.
- 12:57And you've said that companies spend 98 % of training time on technical skills and only about
- 13:03training.
- 13:05new employee training, and things like technical skills, and only about 2 % on things like empathy and connection.
- 13:12What if we flip that equation or even rebalanced it?
- 13:15What kind of difference would that make in how customers and employees feel?
- 13:20Yeah, I don't know what the magic number is and I probably should or we probably should.
- 13:25It would be a good study, even the best companies.
- 13:28I'm not even sure they're 50-50, right?
- 13:31If you go to work at Apple or Chick-fil-A, there's just so much more you need to know operationally, right?
- 13:38How to ring up an order, how to be educated on the
- 13:43the menu, how to take a credit card, cash, gift card, to-go order, drive-through.
- 13:52There just seems to be, and that's, don't even think hospitality is as much as finance, health, and all the other things.
- 14:00So I just think by sheer volume, there is more operational processes that one person needs to know today.
- 14:07Now, eventually, I think it's going to be absorbed by AI.
- 14:11which will reduce it, but I'm not even arguing that it should be 50-50.
- 14:16I think there has to be a strong representation and a strong could be 15%, 25%, which to me would be huge of a new employees onboarding needs to be service aptitude skills,
- 14:31we have nine that we, know, soft skill service aptitude skills, empathy, curiosity, listening, problem solving, service recovery.
- 14:41Genuinely like others.
- 14:43I'm not even thinking of the ones that can't be trained.
- 14:47know,
- 14:53thinking,
- 14:51Optimistic, positive is one, genuine like others is one, those.
- 14:53think all those need, those are things that need to be trained and screened for.
- 15:00And I don't think companies do that enough.
- 15:02And so when you go into the empathy, curiosity, day in the life of a customer, what they're going through,
- 15:10then you're more sensitive if you don't have your own life experiences at it to realize how important communicating and updating and being in the certainty business as much as
- 15:22you can be are so much more important.
- 15:27So let's talk about what this looks like in practice.
- 15:30What are some real examples of companies or leaders who've mastered the certainty business?
- 15:37Well, again, I used Amazon, right?
- 15:40And how well they communicate with you.
- 15:42And if it's out of stock or, know, I think all those companies, companies like that are really, really good.
- 15:49know, New Day now provides, you know, daily updates, communication with their mortgage clients.
- 15:57And even when you're intake, even before you're technically a client, you're in a financial situation, you're trying to get a loan and an account executive cannot tell you,
- 16:10I don't believe, because I think that has to go through credit and different channels, if you're going to be loanable, if you qualify for the loan, that's the hard part.
- 16:20And I don't think instantly they can probably do that.
- 16:24So they have to take your information and do a credit background check and all that stuff.
- 16:30So they can't say, client Thompson, you're gonna qualify for a $300,000 loan, a $1 million loan, a $50,000 loan.
- 16:40That's not the certainty they can do in that moment.
- 16:43But again, they could say, all right,
- 16:45I've asked you all these questions.
- 16:47You provided me with all the information we need.
- 16:51Now it's going to go to underwriting and underwriting takes 24 hours, 48 hours, and I'll have an answer for you by end of tomorrow.
- 17:02That's the certainty that they can provide versus you wondering if maybe your loan wasn't big enough.
- 17:10You're not big enough client or maybe it came back that you're a poor credit risk.
- 17:15All those things you start.
- 17:17And so now you're contacting other financial institutions, hedging your bets, seeing if, well, if I apply at 10, one's got to give me the okay.
- 17:26So being in the certainty business in that, even when it's not the certainty that the client is waiting for.
- 17:33It's just updates.
- 17:34It's just updates in a lot of cases.
- 17:36Yeah, updates make a big difference.
- 17:38Like you said, even if there's nothing to report, letting people know.
- 17:42um
- 17:44another thing, it's not as fresh anymore, thank God, but I think that's why the pandemic was such an anxiety for so many people, because for the longest time, there was no, just
- 17:57wait till the spring, wait till the fall, everything's going to be back to normal.
- 18:02You can travel again, you can go back to restaurants, you could do all the things that you used to do.
- 18:06You know, that was...
- 18:08you know, a moving target that no one could give us and that drove everyone crazy.
- 18:12And then, you know, anytime we're dealing with crisis.
- 18:15So this may have been your next question, is internally leaders to employees, right?
- 18:23right now the AI uncertainty is driving everyone crazy.
- 18:26And we've seen in the past couple months, Amazon UPS target Microsoft meta.
- 18:34laying off tens of thousands of employees right before the holidays.
- 18:40And I'm not judging them or whatever.
- 18:43But whether you're going through it as a company, a recession, layoffs, or you're not, but every employee, I think every human being that is probably not the entrepreneur CEO is
- 19:00wondering
- 19:01Are my days numbered here?
- 19:03Like, I can't believe there's not a human being that has, I thought that.
- 19:07Like, is my day numbered as doing what I do and I'm gonna be replaced by a bot.
- 19:12So I think it's critical that, you know, as leaders we're in this certainty business and we can't guarantee that, you know, if we know, you know, that the layoffs are done, tell
- 19:23everyone.
- 19:23Just keep everyone up to date.
- 19:25of what you know and what's expected.
- 19:29It's so much better than just the lack of updates and lack of communication.
- 19:34And I'm sorry, what it's gonna take to turn things around.
- 19:38If you're going through a crisis, be clear.
- 19:43Here's what we need to do.
- 19:44All hands on deck.
- 19:45Here's the plan.
- 19:47If we hit this, hit this, you know, and get everyone a part of the solution, but just the lack of communication is ugly.
- 19:55I want to mention to our listeners, if you're serious about creating a world-class customer experience, one that really sets your brand apart and builds loyalty that can't
- 20:04be copied, think about joining the Customer Experience Executive Academy.
- 20:10The CXEA, as we call it, is our flagship 12-month certification program where leaders learn how to operationalize customer experience excellence across every department.
- 20:20You work directly with John DeJuillus and our team of consultants to design systems,
- 20:25that make world-class service the standard, not the exception.
- 20:30So if you want to build a program of certainty within your business, this class is for you.
- 20:38Seats fill up fast, and the next one, the next enrollment is January.
- 20:43If you're interested, schedule a call to learn more or enroll today at tdg.click forward slash Claudia.
- 20:51We'll have that information in the show notes for you too.
- 20:54All right, now back to the conversation, John, on what it means to be in the certainty business.
- 20:58In times of change, uncertainty can ripple throughout a company fast.
- 21:02And you talked about layoffs and that.
- 21:05What's the leader's role in calming that anxiety?
- 21:08Especially a lot of times leaders don't have the answers.
- 21:12They don't know who's on the chopping block.
- 21:15Yeah, you know, I think it was Vern Harnish that I read one of his blogs that said during a crisis, no employee will ever criticize a leader for reaching out to them or, you know,
- 21:30too many updates.
- 21:31And I think, you know, it was Vern that said the number one KPI you should have as a leader
- 21:39during a crisis is communication time.
- 21:43How much are you communicating with your employees?
- 21:47And just be crystal clear.
- 21:48And this is the information we have.
- 21:51This is, you know, what it's right now we, our strategy is, and that's going to get us back to whole.
- 21:56And that could be, you know, we've all had this where people have to take pay cuts or there is layoffs and just communicating.
- 22:05where you think that's gonna, how long and where it's gonna stop and admitting that, know, things can get worse, but we think we've done what we need to and how long you expect that
- 22:20to be.
- 22:21And that's always a moving target.
- 22:23But I think the more you communicate with people.
- 22:26Another example I wanna use, one of our favorite clients, Carter Mario Law Firm,
- 22:31out of Connecticut, how they tackle this is all professional service companies, especially lawyers, get complaints that they don't return voicemails, emails quickly enough.
- 22:41So to avoid that, because that is uncertainty.
- 22:45If you're calling your lawyer and you're not getting a call back, that's not a good thing.
- 22:51It's not good customer experience, but it's also, your mind is playing
- 22:55you know, games with you and what's happening and you must have bad news.
- 22:59They must be avoiding me.
- 23:01I'm not going to get the settlement, whatever that looks like.
- 23:04They're too busy.
- 23:05I'm not a big enough client.
- 23:07So Carter Mario for over 20 years now has, if you leave a message, email, voicemail, and they don't call you back same day, lunch is on Carter.
- 23:18So they call you back.
- 23:20And I always say, sometimes it'll be like, know, or Denise, let me look into that.
- 23:24I got to check with another department to see what we can do with that.
- 23:29And I'll get back to you by end of today.
- 23:31But the other department internally doesn't get back to me with an answer and they're waiting on something.
- 23:39So we choose not to call our client back because we don't have an answer.
- 23:44Well, a no answer is still an answer.
- 23:47and reaching out to them saying, Denise, I haven't forgotten about you.
- 23:51Unfortunately, credit, underwriting, shipping, whomever, our supplier hasn't gotten back to me.
- 23:59I don't want you to think I forgot.
- 24:01So if you could give leaders one practical takeaway to start reducing uncertainty in their business today, what would it be?
- 24:09communicate and have a thing like New Day USA and Carter Mario and all these companies have is it's forced communication, meaning, you know, whatever that is, New Day, they have
- 24:23to communicate with their existing clients every 24 hours.
- 24:27Carter Mario calls back same day, returns messages, just constant communication.
- 24:34Go ugly early.
- 24:35If it's bad news, you open with it.
- 24:37You let them know and then you work with them on what you're gonna do to reduce the pain.
- 24:45So you talk about communicate, over communicate.
- 24:48Is there a KPI for that?
- 24:50How do you, is there a way an organization can measure or recognize that they're succeeding in that, that they're truly operating in the certainty business?
- 24:59Yeah, well, you know, the VU veteran opt out, know, so the KPI to reduce veterans from in New Day's case of opting out and going with another firm is that you have to communicate
- 25:14daily.
- 25:14They track that if they don't, if they fail to communicate within every 24 hours, I think business days, Monday through Friday, the loan freezes.
- 25:25So that's on their return on experience dashboard.
- 25:28Bells and sirens go off.
- 25:30You don't want that to happen.
- 25:31The KPI at Carter is he's buying your client lunch and you have to explain to him why he had to buy your client lunch this week.
- 25:39That's a KPI.
- 25:40So anything that's trackable, that triggers notification, there's a lot of clients that have unresolved issues.
- 25:48they track that and how many days since the customer complained, sent an inquiry, all those are trackable today.
- 25:58And they have their green, yellow, and red lights.
- 26:02And I think a lot of times they're too generous, meaning that if it gets to three days a week, it turns yellow or red.
- 26:11I don't think it should ever go that long.
- 26:14And with AI, it doesn't have to today.
- 26:17Yeah, AI can help with a lot of that.
- 26:19I have one more question for you.
- 26:22What is over your shoulder on the shelf that looks like a head?
- 26:27It is a hat.
- 26:27I if you can see it.
- 26:29Let me grab it here.
- 26:30Yeah.
- 26:33I can't reach with my right hand because I just said, that's okay.
- 26:37I just had shoulder surgery.
- 26:39So it's a mannequin.
- 26:40I'm assuming my son Cal had it in his room.
- 26:43We probably got it from the salons, but it's a mannequin for our DiJulius Group hat, which says the customer service revolution.
- 26:53Why is it creepy?
- 26:54Well, it was just recently Halloween.
- 26:58I just couldn't tell what it was.
- 27:00It looked like a head and...
- 27:02Now it's our hats.
- 27:04love our hats.
- 27:04There you go.
- 27:05There you go.
- 27:07Thank you for that.
- 27:08And thanks for the conversation.
- 27:11Thank you.
- 27:12It's a great reminder of what people want most isn't always speed or better prices.
- 27:17They want to feel confident that you have things under control.
- 27:20And when you communicate clearly, follow up consistently and lead with empathy, you remove that anxiety, the one that causes customers and employees to disconnect.
- 27:29ah
- 27:31said something really good I want to double click on, respond or communicate with empathy.
- 27:36you know, I could keep you in the certainty business and we've all had it even in, you know, or medical where a doctor gives you bad news but doesn't do it empathetically and
- 27:51just states your...
- 27:53diagnosis or prognosis or whatever the correct term is.
- 27:58know, hey, know, Denise, I'll let you know that, you know, the book order that you place that you needed for your event is not going to make it there on time.
- 28:05It's, you know, it's going to be there a week later.
- 28:08Like that isn't good.
- 28:10We got to, you know, do it with certainty.
- 28:12I mean, I'm sorry, with, with empathy and say, Denise, I feel horrible.
- 28:16I'm so sorry.
- 28:17you know, supply chain issues, tariffs, whatever it may be.
- 28:21And then maybe we go to a, you know, right now I'm going to, you know, call every bookstore in your city to see if I can get, you know, a hundred books together that you
- 28:32could pick up or ship or something.
- 28:34But something it goes with, you know, never, never say no, focus on what you can do.
- 28:40Right.
- 28:41And
- 28:41And that's such an important thing that I'm glad you brought up because we can certainly go ugly early, you know, with just, you know, matter of factly.
- 28:51Sorry, can't be on the call today.
- 28:53Sorry.
- 28:54Or not even saying sorry or saying sorry, but not meaning it.
- 28:59Yeah, that's important.
- 29:00And that goes back to zero risk.
- 29:02So that's why we have 10 commandments in the methodology, because you can't get away with just one.
- 29:07You need to have all the other pieces that go with it, which also reminds me listeners if
- 29:12To learn more about the other commandments, zero risk.
- 29:16Obviously you can go to our website and look at the methodology, but you can also join our Experience Revolution membership where you have access to a library of workshops that John
- 29:28and our VP of Consulting, Dave Murray have put on.
- 29:32It also gives you four live workshops annually.
- 29:37So to hear more about that, to read more about that.
- 29:41visit tdg.click forward slash membership.
- 29:46And if this episode resonated with you, share it with your team.
- 29:49Talk about where uncertainty might exist in your customer or employee experience and how you can replace it with clarity and confidence.
- 29:56And don't forget, if you're ready to make world class your standard, schedule a call to learn more about the Academy at tdg.click forward slash Claudia.
- 30:08Thanks for listening and remember the best brands don't just deliver products or services, they deliver certainty.
- 30:14Thanks, John.
- 30:15Thank you.
- 30:16Thanks, revolutionaries.