It all starts with your internal customers
Are you fulfilling the unexpressed wishes and needs of your customers?
The Ritz-Carlton is and considers it so important they have the message stamped into their credo and their service values. They make it their business to anticipate and be responsive to their clients expressed and unexpressed wishes and needs.
If you want your company to be even remotely considered to be the best in service, to start differentiating yourself from the hordes of competition that exists out there then you need to unravel the mystery of what makes your customers happy. You need to learn how you can anticipate their needs and their wishes before they even know they have them. When you do, the rewards will be amazing!
Is it easy to do? No.
Will it take much effort? Yes.
Is it worth it? Yes.
What will we get out of it? Advocates!
Where do we start? With your employees.
Being super amazing at dazzling your customers is always going to start with your employees, anything else is just superficial and believe me, your customers will see through it. If you can first dazzle your employees; if you can make them advocates of your service, the rest just gets easier. It’s your employees who have to fulfill the expressed and unexpressed wishes of your customers. It is your employees who need to anticipate and act accordingly in order to deliver the Wow! factor.
"To anticipate needs before the customer knows themselves involves knowing your customers, really knowing them. You need to understand their emotions and desires. You need to put yourself in their shoes and wear them, with pride."
Disney does this well. At the Disney parks, they anticipate how a family is going to be feeling after a long day having crazy fun at one of their parks. They know that no matter how many times they conveyed to you where you parked your car that perhaps 8 hours plus later you might just not remember. So they devised a system to make it easier for you to find your car. They also anticipate that at the end of that long fun day you are tired and don’t need the full fanfare and excitement of which you were greeted when you arrived so they tone it all down for you. They anticipate your unexpressed wishes and needs.
Where does Disney and the Ritz-Carlton start? With their internal advocates, their employees.
If you are ready to start being the best, to deliver the Wow! factor then look inward first to your internal customers, your employees. Wow! them, dazzle them, let them shine. If you do they will Wow! Dazzle and let your customers shine.
