It’s coming on Christmas, time for a Star Wars movie! Rogue One hits the screens on cue, and fans old and new are enjoying the latest chapter, in the most messed up chronological tale ever told!
Each new release sparks enthusiastic conversations, about story lines, characters, feelings of nostalgia, and even annoyance and frustration.
The frustration comes from disappointment and unmet expectations. Some fans were just let down, and others felt a greater pain.
Customer Can be Another Way of Saying Fan
As with this type of “fanatic”, your customers must be embraced and listened to. These are your advocates who really care. Those that are quick to get excited and even quicker to get angry. The important point is, that, they are providing you with valuable feedback, insight, and advocacy. All of which you can act on.
For example, in my new role as Member Success Director here at The Service Council, I had to ensure that prior to the 2016 Smarter Services Symposium, that each attendee coming, had a pre-event success call. The goal was to understand their roles and responsibilities tied to Service, their expectations for attending, who they wanted to connect with, and what they wanted to take away and bring back to the workplace. These attendees are not just our customers, these are fans of TSC and of service.
The conversations yielded great information. This feedback helped me to know that I was helping to meet their needs. At the event, I met and talked with a variety of Service professionals across the US, and Europe. Wherever they were from, each one told me with fervor the projects they were working on, their goals, needs, and challenges. In turn, I got excited that I could help make connections with people there, from the information gathered prior to the live event.
In Service, It’s All About the How
On site, I had the privilege to make introductions for folks wanting to understand how a service training program was successfully launched. How to roll out a Customer Service team. How to recruit top talent in the field. How to promote a successful workforce culture. How a service application was successfully implemented with their existing ERP system. How, was the key word.
Following the event, we conducted post-event success calls to find out if our “fan’s” needs had really been met. These conversations were equally as important, as they provided insight to their experience, positive and negative, if their expectations were met and helped us make improvements for the 2017 Smarter Services Symposium.
We’re very excited for next year, because we feel that with the insight gleaned from our fans we might just be able to wow and not disappoint. Nearly as excited as my 9-year-old son as we head out to see Rogue One. I won’t have to ask him if it lived up to his expectations, he will let me know!
Ray Morley
Director of Member Success
The Service Council
rm@servicecouncil.com or @raymorley