4 Pillars of delivering Customer Success

What does it take to deliver a successful customer service experience? Or, to put it differently, what does it take to deliver the kind of service that results in customer success? Fundamentally, when we talk of customer service we are talking about the realisation of 4 important pillars of a brand-empathy, empowerment, leverage and execution.

Empathy: Is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoe, finding a clear access to the context in which service is to be delivered and then finding the path of least resistance to deliver it to the customer. Unless the customer’s context is understood clearly by the customer facing brand custodian, any solution offered will appear insincere and shallow.

Empowerment: Empathy without empowerment is misdirected and empowerment without empathy is like having a solution in search of a problem. Empowerment is a powerful complement to empathy as it lends credibility to the action taken to resolve customer complaints. Through the eyes of the customer it makes the brand seem sincere, purposeful and possessing integrity.

Leverage: It is the ability of a brand owner to marshal his forces around a problem, form a crack team and providing the leadership to enrol team members around a common purpose, that of customer success. The most memorable example is that of mission control staff at Houston that worked to bring the Apollo 13 astronauts home from the brink of certain disaster.

Execution: None of the above aspects of service recovery to achieve customer success can work well without effective execution. It is the act of doing whatever it takes to ensure customer success with design, discipline and direction.

Customer Service Recovery-What's Your Story?

Everyone has a story to tell. A story that comes pouring out when the conversation is centred around customer service. Service experiences can turn a quiet person into a great raconteur. The more disconcerting the experience, more passionate and intense the story. Strangely, stories on positive service experiences are short and crisp and are not accompanied by the emotional intensity of the former. All it takes to bring out this outpouring of discontent is the simple question-What has been your most recent experience with your favourite brand? The story of a credit card that was issued after 1 year of application, a botched credit of a high value cheque, the airline refund that never came, the distasteful experience at your favourite fine dining restaurant, and the list goes on. If there is one experience that I have had consistently on asking this question, it is this-that everyone has a story to tell. A story with a definite villain-the big brand that broke your trust. I bet every one of us, at some point of time, have had a bad service experience which left us with a bad taste-a feeling of helplessness, a strong urge to go forth and switch to another brand. What is your first instinct when you are going through these bouts of emotions as a result of indifferent and bad service? Post the experience on Facebook, write a review on one of the top review websites, right? Wrong. The first thing on your mind is resolution to your problem and the last thing on your mind is seeking popularity through social media. Social media is your last resort when all else fails. You want your grievance to be resolved in the fastest possible manner by someone who is empowered to take a decision. Service is almost like an invisible element in your experience till something goes wrong. It is precisely at this moment of time, moment of truth if you will, that you need to bring it to the attention of the brand custodian for a quick resolution. As you can see, everyone has a story to tell. So what’s yours?

Anna Karenina Principle in Customer Service Recovery

All happy customers are happy in their own way. But all unhappy customers are unhappy for a defined set of reasons. So why do they take to social media to vent their anger and rage and rant against the brand? It turns out that the very act of a breakdown in service does not in itself cause pain to the customer. What causes pain and then leads to anger, frustration, disturbance and dissonance is the neglect the customer is subjected to by the brand custodians. Neglect-an act of wanton disregard of complaints raised by the customer. Neglect that exacerbates the pain caused due to breakdowns in service levels promised by the brand. Asking customers to report their complaints to different departments and further to different people within a department is an extreme application of the rule: Trust but verify. The question is, what do brands gain by checking the veracity of the customer’s version of the complaint? What would brands lose if they were to completely trust the customer’s version of the complaint? Brand managers worry that customer complaints might be frivolous and baseless and create elaborate verification mechanisms to weed out false complaints. This is where the Anna Karenina principle is relevant to service recovery. Using this principle, brands have the possibility to collect feedback from customers in a certain pre-defined manner so that complaints are specific and based on actual pain points experienced by the customer while engaging with the brand. Specific complaints get notified to the right person thus ensuring early resolution. Localising the problem-isolating the pain point that caused customer dissatisfaction helps to address and resolve the issue powerfully and effectively. In the context of customer experience, a deeper understanding of the Anna Karenina principle offers a very powerful tool to transform service breakdowns to service breakthroughs.

The lesson that Peshawar's children taught us

To call what took place over 7 hours in Peshawar brutal and inhuman would seem like a cliche. To term it as retribution would seem like commiting another horrific crime. To term it a wake up call would be to insult the memories of all those who lost their lives during terrorist attacks the world over. The sheer brutality of the massacre has left all of us scarred and some of us permanently. Such has been the impact of this carnage, that it seems like a travesty to even feel and express a sense of pain and anger at the perpetrators of the crime. So, it is with great trepidation that I even attempt to look for a lesson from this horrific brutality on humanity. Trepidation, because I do not want the scar inflicted on us to heal lest we conveniently forget the children who sacrificed their lives to bring to us a very important lesson on humanity.

What kind of a monster have we created from what we call as religion? How did we even leave enough room for such brutality and violent intent in our grand design of evolving human life? Of what purpose is religion, if in its defense people have to resort to violent and brutal means? Of what purpose are the teachings of religion if all it does is make our horizons narrower? Of what purpose are religious rituals and customs if all that emerges from them are militant thoughts and gruesome deaths? Why did we let this genie, of religion, out if its most spectacular manifestations are gruesome, brutal and inhuman? I am certain that the prophets did not want it this way.  Is this massacre of innocent lives a signal of  our futility to live together in harmony or symbolic of human helplessness? Whatever the context, violent acts of terrorism borne out of  religious fundamentalism have only one way to go-OUT!!! This is not even a matter to be negotiated and solved. Let us admit it, we cannot have a dialogue with people who have lost their basic sense of humanity. Is this the moment that we were waiting for-the inflection point if you will, for a world without religion? Why do we persist with a system that does not spare innocent lives. Can even the worst natural calamity come close to this wilful intent at snuffing out innocent lives? In Peshawar, religion stood exposed in all its ugliness.

It is not anger, outrage, condemnation or a punishing attack that will annihilate this monstrous force of terrorism borne out of religious fundamentalism. If there is one thing that can, it is resolve, a firm and unrelenting resolve for securing and strengthening humanity for now and for posterity. A resolve is an affirmation and not a reaction, because reactions lead to escalations and resolve defines a new path, a new beginning. It is only resolve that can bring our attention to a future without fear. The longer we linger our attention to the tragedy we would be unwittingly playing into the hands of those who unleashed this barbaric action. This unrelenting, unremitting resolve should emerge from each one of us, in equal measure, no matter how far away we are from Peshawar. A collective and determined resolve of humanity, not in anger, not in retribution, but in affirmation of our ability to live together in resonance and harmony.

If there is one lesson, that the 132 children of Peshawar taught all of humanity, in those horrifying 7 hours, it is to redeem the humanity in each one of us and resolve to secure our future for all times to come. Let us not allow this lesson not go away, ever.

I am humbled

I am humbled, when I am surrounded

By the sudden expanse of silence

To dwell, after the laughters

I am humbled, when I behold

The abundant luxury of contemplation

Of love, longing, friendship and adoration

From the well spring of a thousand hearts

I am humbled, when I sense

The distant sorrow in a stranger’s eyes

To revel in momentary joy on my fortune

I am humbled, when I sense the mock suffering

Of multiplying choices before me

Of comfort, of pleasure, of seeking different horizons

Dwelling on them in quiet luxury

I am humbled, when I behold

The countless stars in the expanse of a disappeared horizon

And gaze upto them in the soothing warmth of a campfire

Not on a hungry stomach and a roofless shack, but by choice

I am humbled, when I sense

The starkness of duality, of joy and sorrow

Of a wailing heart and a shriek of ecstasy

I am humbled, when you present me the tools

To look beyond the horizon’s verge

I am humbled, when you reveal yourself

In the magnificence of a thousand multiplicities

Oh! To behold these dualities

In a puny mind such as mine with all its unrealised limitations

I am but a mere mortal, before the eternal grace of who you are

I am but a speck in your grand scheme of things

I am humbled, as I struggle to contemplate

I am humbled, as a flash of lightning illumines infinity

As the infinity that descended into multiplicities

Can one flash of enlightenment reveal the infinite?

Or a thousand lifetimes in surrendered pursuits?

Gods-History or Myth?

Why do humans need Gods? Why do we Indians need so many Gods? Were Gods created to represent qualities that normal human beings did not possess? Were our Gods normal people like you and me before we began to treat them as Gods? Is Indian mythology only a figment of people’s imagination? Is there an element of history in Indian mythology? Can we, for a moment, see our Gods not as Gods, but as people with extraordinary abilities normally not seen in people? My case is that if we saw our Gods a little differently, through the prism of great human achievement, the highest possibilities that a human being can aspire to, then we would understand them better. If we go with this argument, and the intent is to celebrate and emulate qualities of Gods why do we perform elaborate rituals to do so? Is there a more straightforward way, relevant to our present time and context, to reach out to our Gods?

Do our epic heroes, that are part of mythological stories, have relevance beyond their immediate context and lives? Why is it that among epic heroes, some are celebrated more than other heroes? What is the purpose of an Avatar? Is an Avatar an attempt by the human mind to lend meaning to a point in distant time that it does not understand and comprehend? Do Avatars have a meaning beyond mere symbolism and context?

Were Krishna & Ram, two of our most celebrated Gods, around whose lives two of India’s greatest and oft quoted epics, The Mahabharata and Ramayana, were written did what they did because they wanted to be remembered as Gods? What qualities did Krishna & Ram possess? Are they symbolic heroes in the sense that we worship them as Gods because we want to identify them with certain attributes we humans aspire to? What is the message and legacy that Krishna and Ram sought to convey through their lives to millions of Indians? Did the message of Krishna and Ram travel beyond their immediate context and times? It is said that Krishna during his time criticized ritualism and symbolism and made his people see the merits of responding to the here and now and not take refuge in hoary traditions and rituals that have lost their meaning. Why do millions of Indians continue to worship Krishna & Ram, during Janmashtami/ Dahi Handi, Ram Navami, Deepavali and Navaratri? Why do these two Gods, among thousands of other Gods that Indians worship, hold a special place in our lives? Did Krishna & Ram demonstrate qualities that we, hero worshipping Indians, constantly aspire to in our lives? How did Krishna and Ram lead their respective lives? Every Indian knows, through the frequent retelling of our great epics, that both Krishna and Ram exerted extraordinary influence on the events and people of their day. But what we do not know is how Krishna and Ram made the choices that led them to exert such an extraordinary impact on the events of their time. Firstly, are the lives of Krishna & Ram relevant in today’s times beyond the symbolism that they convey? Can Indian God worshippers go beyond the mere symbolism that prevails around the lives of these epic heroes? I believe that there is a message in the lives of these two Gods, Krishna and Ram, that goes beyond the context and the period in which they lived their lives. I think there is a timeless quality to the lives of Krishna and Ram, which left such a deep impact on the lives of Indians that, thousands of years on, these two epic heroes (or Gods) continue to inspire and influence our lives. It is difficult to believe that qualities attributed to Krishna and Ram were merely the creation of the writers of these epic stories. It is however likely that as writers, both Ved Vyas and Valmiki(or Tulsidas, Kamban) found the lives of these heroes so awe inspiring that they decided to record it for posterity. But have we lost the essence of their heroic lives at the altar of symbolism? Is symbolism preventing us from understanding and learning from the extraordinary lives of Krishna and Ram? If we do away with the symbolism surrounding the lives of Krishna and Ram can we understand their lives, and the message contained therein, better? Can we invent new rituals to celebrate the lives of Krishna and Ram to suit our present context?

Can the message of Krishna and Ram, conveyed through their respective lives, be relevant in the present context? If so, what aspect of their lives would we uphold and celebrate in today’s times?