Authenticity. The word's on the tip of the tongue of every customer service consultant, marketer, today. Which, I've got to say, makes sense.
Customers today have an advanced ability to spot corporate hogwash
Today’s customers have a well-developed sense of what is and isn’t genuine and an advanced ability to spot corporate hogwash. To win customers over today, a business—its leaders, frontline workers, marketers and behind-the-scenes operators—needs to behave in a way that is genuine and is perceived by customers to be authentic.
Authenticity unlocks the wallets of customers of all ages
Few customers of any age–whether Boomers, Silent Generation, or Gen X–are fond of artifice, but the search for the genuine is particularly emblematic of the millennial generation.
Previous generations, unsatisfied with and rebelling from their homes of origin, have also searched for the authentic: Picture the upper-crust young lady leaving home to “[meet] a man from the motor-trade,” about whom the Beatles sang in “She’s Leaving Home.” But as a generational trait, this search for what’s genuine is especially pronounced in millennials, the theme having emerged from a confluence of factors better dissected by a sociologist than me: a childhood bisected by 9/11, the collapse of traditionally rock-solid institutions during and following the 2008 economic meltdown, the stylistic influence of reality TV and hand-held YouTube videos, and the eye-level communication, educational, and parenting styles with which they’ve grown up.
How To Exude Authenticity
Some of what creates authenticity is intrinsic to your brand: your origins (for example, being first or storied in a particular marketplace: Levi’s, Sam Adams and so forth), a genuine founder or spokesperson who personifies authenticity (Yvon Chouinard, the climber/founder of Patagonia, for example) and similar factors that might feel beyond your control.
But some genuine elements of a brand can be consciously created as part of the overall customer experience. The keys to projecting a genuine brand reside in the cues you are giving about your image through the customer experience you create, and here’s where you have an opportunity to transform doing business from a generic and perhaps suspect exchange into something meaningful for your customers, something that attracts their continuing and increasing business over time.
Authenticity, as it applies to customer service and the customer experience, is conveyed through:
• Language: word choice and scripting (or lack thereof)
• Service style: an eye-level, peer-to-peer, non-servile communication style and an appropriate level of formality, including how employees dress and identify themselves
• Visual, tactile and sensory clues: design, materials, finishes and furnishings
Authentic Customer Service Communication
A stilted, overly formal service style, even from the most caring providers, puts a ceiling on how intimate and inviting the interactions can be between employees and customers. Customers in today’s marketplace favor a straightforward, down to earth, even slangy style of communication from most types of business with which they interact. Excessive formality is hazardous to your business because it clashes with the personal style of your customers, millennials in particular, making your brand appear out of touch or even condescending.
For example, traditionally prescribed hospitality language has included the use of phrases like “my pleasure” and “certainly, Sir,” which work up to a point but sound wooden when overused or used inappropriately. “It was really my pleasure to visit with you during your stay, Mr. Jamison” is fine, but never: “It will be my pleasure to clean your toilet.”
A good way to enforce reasonable language standards, without hobbling the verbal footwork of your employees, is what I’ve named the Danny Meyer Method, after the great New York restaurateur. With the Meyer Method, although you ask your employees to nix certain phrases (“it’s our policy,” “to be honest with you,” “uh-huh,” “you guys,” or this pet peeve of Danny’s: “Are we still working on the lamb?”), you don’t prescribe specific replacements, leaving that up to the creativity and individuality of your staff.
This approach has the additional benefit of keeping your employees comfortable in their own skins, using their own shorthand as needed with customers. You’re providing employees with boundaries in their interactions but empowering them by letting them use their own style within those parameters.
Ditch the customer service scripts (for the most part)
In almost all settings, I suggest doing away with word-for-word scripts but retaining a “punch list” of points that need to be covered in the course of a conversation. (Life-and-death settings such as healthcare and pharmaceutical delivery are important exceptions, as are interactions with privacy or security implications.) This approach to customer interactions avoids running into customers’ innate dislike of being read to from a script.
Besides: successful scripting, on the other hand, is “dependent on your customer following a script himself!” as contact-center expert Colin Taylor puts it; it only works if customers behave in an expected pattern to which you can respond with a predetermined line. But customer concerns come in infinite varieties, with infinite moods, paces and nuances.
So instead of training to a script, the best thing an organization can do is teach its people to deal with situations, both good and difficult. Give them the tools to recognize behaviors and respond appropriately and effectively.
Or as Doug Carr of FRHI Hotels & Resorts (Fairmont, Raffles and Swissotel are their brands) puts it, “The things that matter can’t be scripted. You can build scenarios for your staff, but you need to couple this with encouragement and training for your staff on how to read the customer, and then doing what’s right and what’s appropriate.” Sara Kearney of Hyatt puts it like this: “It takes an awful lot of practice to come across as completely unscripted.” Kearney continues: “We don’t script [at Hyatt’s brand, Andaz], but we do an awful lot of role plays and dress rehearsals to help people understand their role in bringing the brand experience to life.” Departing from formula isn’t easy. (Easy would be prescribing specific words for an unempowered employee to read.)
But the results are worth it, and the impact will be clear in the flexible, nuanced, genuine brand of service you offer.
Micah Solomon is a customer experience consultant, customer service speaker and bestselling business author, most recently of High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service
