Conscious Customer Service – How can I REALLY help you?
Article by Corporate Coach Alchemist Anne Merkel, Ph.D.
How often have you had a need and somebody else defined that need for you? Or, you had a need and the providers of solutions were only able to offer you a set, somewhat generic model of what they thought might best fit your need?
Did it seem that you were REALLY cared about or that your true needs were significant?
On the other hand, how often have YOU been flexible enough to create a new way of looking at the specific needs of another so that you could REALLY take care of providing for the needs in the best way possible?
Have you every gone beyond old set parameters to REALLY meet the true needs of a person or organization by working closely and directly with them to design just the right “fix”?
Have you consciously asked them directly how you could REALLY best serve them?
Personal relationships model this concept. Often we offer love, support, nurturing in ways that we each would most enjoy receiving these back. This does NOT mean that the focus of our affection appreciates what we offer.
The best way to do the very personal “dance” of personal relationship is to ASK the other person what he or she most would like you to do, how you can best do it, when it is welcome, for how long, and other strategic questions that will allow you to really understand how to best LOVE and support that other person so that he or she really feels loved.
I think the same goes for excelling in professional relationships with “customers”, or any who we wish to directly serve.
Over the years, like many coach/consultant/trainer/facilitators, I have been asked by management teams of organizations to create specialized programs for their employees. I have been provided plans of action, participant demographics, projected results by each management team and then invited to design and implement specialized programs based on what the managers felt their people needed.
It is my opinion that we all tend to judge the needs of others… and our perspectives are not always appropriate. Often managers feel that it saves time for them to decide what programs, trainings, support initiatives their employees need most. Sometimes their judgments are correct and sometimes they miss the mark, and time, energy, money is wasted.
Personally I have found success in best supporting my clients by going directly to the projected participants and asking them what they need. I usually do my own needs assessments, asking the “right” consultant questions of the management and participants. Often I discover that if I created programs based on the original manager requests the participants would not show up, or if they did, they would not be committed to learn because they would feel it to be a waste of their time and energy, and the company’s money.
How often are training sessions resented by participants, or simply considered the “flavor of the month”, and following the sessions life quickly goes back to as it has always been? Frankly, I enjoy creating programs which promise more buy-in from the very beginning.
I do this by including in each program an up-front program-planning session with the full participant audiences themselves. Often I utilize Open Space Technology which allows for small groups or hundreds to interact in the same meeting, so an entire population of participants can meet together around a theme of discussing training needs; then the program itself is designed on the plans set by this large meeting, for implementation in smaller training session groups. The people define what they need and provide the specific action plans for how they want support in having their needs met. The program is developed around this, within the broader parameters set by management, and history shows that buy-in and committed participation is achieved.
So, as we perceive needs in those around us, it is best if we ask them to define exactly what they want rather than trying to project what we think they need. By doing this I have found that much time, energy, money is saved, and the successes speak for themselves.
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