One of us was let lose this month and found himself in front of 300 sleepy post-lunch sets of eyes staring blankly back at him. Of course, the content up on the stage screen was grossly over-engineered as our intrepid speaker could not shake the thought that by representing Business Docs in a public arena, the slides had BETTER be good!

For what it is worth, here are a few tips we can offer for getting up on stage and trying to stop a room full of people boo or fall asleep.

1. Remember who your audience is
2. Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them it, then remind them what you just told them
3. Humans seem to work better with 3 things be it sections, content or ideas
4. Memorise your lines, practice your lines, learn the flow
5. Know your next slide so you can transform effortlessly from one to another
6. If you even bother with slides – some of the best speakers use few
7. Don’t be so rigid with your presentation that you can’t flex a little with the mood in the room
8. Don’t sell your own product – sell your presentation
9. Make it feel like you wrote it for that audience
10. Remember that they are more scared of you than you are of them*

*That might be dogs

I have spent many years working in the financial services sector; a heavily regulated industry where fraud is a constant and real presence. The fact is that people do steal from their insurance company and our head office had a zero tolerance approach. Which is completely understandable.

But on occasion it felt as if the customer as a result of this was starting from a position of having to demonstrate that they were honest and truthful as opposed to that being the natural assumption until proven otherwise.

I once asked a rehabilitation nurse what the worse thing about her job was; “people faking injuries” was the immediate response. “And not because they are trying to get money, I don’t care about that. What I do care about is that I have a maximum case load I can take and that cheat meant I didn’t help someone else who genuinely needed me“. So it is entirely understandable how there can sometimes be a sense of distrust upfront – not because frontline staff don’t care, but actually because they do.

Looking outside of the sector I have known so well for so long, I went looking for other companies in other industries to see if anyone had made a conscious choice to

1. Accept the customers word at face value, no questions asked
2. Created a customer service ethos around this

Quite a few companies started to stand out who had done just that.

Nordstrom

Once you start looking a few names keep cropping up and one of those is the fashion retailer, Nordstrom. There are hundreds of examples of what they have done, all under the single instruction of “Use good judgement in all situations” 

Proving that world class customer service is not an invention of the modern age, the story that is often relayed is from the 1970’s when a customer returned a set of Winter tyres to their Nordic store and requested a refund of $145. This was dutifully given, no questions asked, despite the fact that Nordstrom have never sold tyres.

There is a bit of further context to this story which is not always elaborated on; Nordstrom had only a few weeks earlier bought the site where the store was now situated from a tyre company where the returning customer had originally purchased the tyres.  They had no legal responsibility for the tyre store, but could understand the customer coming to them.

Zappos

Like Nordstrom, there are countless examples of the customer service ethos and face value trust that this shoe retailer installs in its staff. They also hold a record for the longest customer service call, taken in December 2012 which came in at 10 hours, 29 minutes because each call takes as long as it needs to.

Away from stories of flowers sent, hand delivered items in emergencies and so on is a simple one where a customer reported her sons shoes had broken and Zappos simply apologised and sent a new pair – no photographs of the shoe as evidence, no having to return the defective item, just taking the customers word for it.

Amazon

Over the years Amazon have also gained a world class customer reputation, and like Zappos a lot is down to the trust element.

One customer reported a coffee machine to be an unwanted gift after some 3 months of purchase, returned the item and waited for the $189 refund. When it didn’t arrive she called Amazon who had never received the returned item. They took her word and made the refund immediately.

Barclaycard

It’s not for insurance so I have counted it as another sector!

Over the years their customer service ethos has really grown. A recent example was where cash was withdrawn from an ATM using the credit card in error (it had the same PIN as the debit card which was intended to be used). Knowing that the charges associated with this would be just shy of the national debt the customer contacted Barclaycard to explain it had been done in error – all charges associated with the transaction were waived because the customer service agent didn’t think it was fair for the customer to pay out for a mistake.

Folk Clothing

It’s not just the larger companies that follow this ethos; a small retailer based in Lambs Conduit St, London has the same sense of trust.

A customer bought two items online but on arrival it was found that one of the items was a slightly different version to the one ordered. On contacting the store, apologies were offered, the correct item was located from the stock room and a cab ordered to dispatch it immediately. The customer explained that they might not be in due to a prior meeting so the cabbie was instructed to leave the item in a safe location. At no stage were any arrangements made for the return of the wrongly sent item and this was only done when the customer phoned the following day.

Putting your money where your mouth is

When we formed Business Documents UK LTD we were determined that we would have the same customer ethos running through our business; i.e. we would take our customer at face value. When it’s a small business and alarm bells start going off that’s sometimes a little harder to do than we first thought, but we’ve stuck to it.

Last week a customer in Oman was having trouble using the payment system on our site to buy our biggest item. His credit card wasn’t working so after trying a couple of options with him, he told us he’d transferred the money into our account. Our bank shows no money transfer and when we call them, they have no record at all. The customer then contacts us and says he’d like the templates delivered today please.

So we send them.

The money arrived the next day.

We’ve issued refunds on requests despite there being nothing wrong with the product (customers words not ours), send alternative versions if people change their minds and even re-written a couple of templates just for that individual.

Have people taken advantage of us? We’d say possibly, cynics would say definitely.

So will we change?

Not a chance.

What we have seen is that the customers we have been privileged to have bought from us have been disarmingly honest, decent folk and the bottom line is that we accept that a few might try it on so that we can trust the majority who won’t.

We flew Ryan Air recently and it was “interesting”, but what really stood out was at every stage the supply chain was held up to blame as the villain who was responsible for every small problem.

Our experience was actually not too bad; two flights, two delays, a grand total of about 3 hours delays over both legs which could be best described as irritating. There were no hoards of passengers beating down the pilots door or flooding the customer desk with compensation requests yet a scape goat was presented to accompany every update once delays set in.

1. The flight is delayed because the incoming flight is late
2. The take-off is delayed because airport provided ground staff are not available
3. The take-off is further delayed because a third party hasn’t got the paperwork to air control on time
4. The take-off is further delayed because air-control are being slow
5. We’ve landed but this airports ground crew didn’t sort out a landing gate
6. We’ve got a gate but Swiss Air staff haven’t arrived to open the doors yet

Talking amongst the passengers (we had a fair bit of time on our hands) the reaction to this was universal;

We don’t know how an airline works, we don’t care how an airline works, we paid ONE company so we expect that company to look after us.

The Supply Chain Shield

Blaming your own companies failings is way more common that people right realise; “it’s the other planes fault”, “our sales department let you down” etc. But over the years we have seen that whilst the blame might be readily allocated, the responsibility on behalf of the wider company is more often than not taken on board so in the eyes of the customer someone is owning the problem.

Not so when it comes to supply chain; there are still many interactions where the supply chain is held up like a defensive shield against all manner of complaints, the implication being that “We are good; THEY are not and are letting YOU down. NOT US”

Customers Perception

Has any customer ever, on hearing that it was a supplier not the main company they bought the service from, felt any different about the service they have received? We would say that at best no, and at worst it makes the situation even worse.

Ryan Air have chosen to outsource a large part of their operational service to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. Good for them. But don’t start blaming these companies when they don’t deliver. MANAGE the supply chain internally, don’t insult the customer by thinking we will forgive bad service or focus our frustrations on another company. We won’t; we paid YOU, not your suppliers, it’s your job to make them perform.

After all, should the experience on landing be world class thanks to the supplier, we wonder how many subsequent announcements are made saying “actually, its not us, that’s our supplier”?