The Emotional Side of Customer Service

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

by Anthony Lam, The Covenant Group

In addi­tion to pro­vid­ing a solu­tion to a client’s per­sonal or finan­cial prob­lem, how do you think your company’s prod­ucts and ser­vices impact that per­son? You may think that a friendly demeanor or tak­ing the time to meet with a client face-to-face is insignif­i­cant, but the effort can actu­ally res­onate with him or her on an emo­tional level. Addi­tion­ally, being able to make a client’s day can have a pos­i­tive effect on your employ­ees as well.

In a SAGE pub­li­ca­tion on Human Rela­tions, researchers from the Uni­ver­sity of West­ern Aus­tralia and Car­leton Uni­ver­sity in Canada stud­ied how employee-client inter­ac­tions affect both par­ties on an emo­tional level and what con­se­quences that has for cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and employ­ees’ well-being. They iden­ti­fied instances of “emo­tional con­ta­gion, where the pos­i­tive emo­tions of the sales employ­ees, or those of the cus­tomer, influ­enced the emo­tion of the other.”

Employ­ees who par­tic­i­pated in the study wrote diaries track­ing their inter­ac­tions with clients on a daily basis, which were sep­a­rated into five kinds of inter­ac­tions: Event-emotion, event-appraisal (when the team mem­ber feels he or she had an influ­ence on the client out­come), appraisal-emotion, negative-event-positive-emotion and emo­tional con­ta­gion relationships.

The way clients and employ­ees inter­act with each other sets up a cycle. If one feels happy, that will influ­ence the other’s reac­tion. If a client comes in with a neg­a­tive atti­tude but the employee is able to find a solu­tion, that team mem­ber is likely to feel proud and worth­while. These and other expe­ri­ences can con­tribute to an over­all pos­i­tive atti­tude for employ­ees and clients alike.

How do you strive to cre­ate a pleas­ant, pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence for your employ­ees and your clients? Have you cre­ated a sys­tem in which both par­ties can be sat­is­fied, or is one group’s well-being dimin­ished in favor of the other?

The process for ensur­ing your clients always have a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence when they inter­act with your employ­ees is twofold. First, you must hire tal­ented peo­ple who don’t just pay lip-service to client rela­tion­ship man­age­ment — they gen­uinely value it and believe in its con­tri­bu­tion to busi­ness suc­cess. Sec­ondly, encour­age them to put for­ward a happy and enthu­si­as­tic demeanor when work­ing with clients.

This can be achieved by cre­at­ing a customer-centric cor­po­rate cul­ture, lead­ing by exam­ple and by rein­forc­ing the mes­sage with ver­bal reminders that you are in the busi­ness of serv­ing peo­ple. The prod­ucts you pro­vide are sec­ondary to this mission.

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices training.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Carleton University, Client Interactions, Client Outcome, Covenant Group, Customer Satisfaction, Daily Basis, Demeanor, Emotion, Emotional Contagion, Emotional Level, Emotional Side, Human Relations, Negative Attitude, Positive Attitude, Sage Publication, Taking The Time, Team Member, University In Canada, University Of Western Australia
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Are You Using Periodic Reviews to Secure Client Capital?

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

Some of the most valu­able busi­ness prospects are already your clients. Because you have already suc­ceeded in con­vert­ing exist­ing clients, a major por­tion of the mar­ket­ing process has been com­pleted. It allows you to build upon your past suc­cesses and the fact that the exist­ing clients are already famil­iar with your work.

Get infor­ma­tion on past actions for future suc­cess
To get insight into how you can do that, how­ever, you must undergo peri­odic reviews. As I explained in a recent pre­sen­ta­tion at the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Insur­ance and Finan­cial Advi­sors’ Annual Con­fer­ence (NAIFA), this is a six-step process and should be part of a reg­u­lar follow-up sched­ule that you main­tain for each of your clients.

Explain to your clients that you like to con­duct peri­odic reviews, and send an invi­ta­tion between two and four weeks ahead of when you would like to meet. Call them to estab­lish a con­crete date and time, and then send a meet­ing agenda a week before this date. Shar­ing an out­line for the meet­ing will make it a more con­struc­tive dis­cus­sion for you and the client and will allow both of you to orga­nize your thoughts ahead of time. Tele­phone once again to con­firm that your client received the agenda and ask if there are any ques­tions he or she would like to ask ahead of time or that should be cov­ered in more detail dur­ing the meet­ing. Anthony Lam delves deeper into the sim­ple steps you can take before a meet­ing here.

When you meet with the client, you can ask for feed­back on your per­for­mance and for sug­ges­tions of how you can pro­vide added value. This is a great oppor­tu­nity to have your clients reaf­firm their sat­is­fac­tion with your ser­vice and con­fi­dence in your abil­i­ties. The meet­ing will be a primer not only for secur­ing future sales — it can also be a great tran­si­tion as you ask for refer­rals and intro­duc­tions. At that point, describe who your ideal prospect is, and guide the client through a few ques­tions to help him or her iden­tify poten­tial leads. Now the client will be primed for you to ask for a per­sonal intro­duc­tion (a much more effec­tive tac­tic than cold-calling referrals).

In both the introduction-request and review processes, fol­low­ing up with your client is essen­tial. Let him or her know how it goes with the prospects they iden­ti­fied. Sim­i­larly, con­tact clients with whom you con­duct reviews to A) thank them for their time and feed­back, and B) let them know what course of action you plan to take as a result of their cri­tiques and/or suggestions.

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Business Prospects, Confidence, Covenant Group, Future Sales, Insight, Insurance, Introductions, Invitation, Marketing Process, Meeting Agenda, National Association Of Insurance And Financial Advisors, Norm Trainor, Referrals, Satisfaction, Simple Steps, Six Step, Successes, Time Telephone, Transition
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What Story are you Building for the Client?

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

by Anthony Lam, The Covenant Group

A com­mon dis­cus­sion in the world of cus­tomer ser­vice is how to build a nar­ra­tive for your clients. Some of the biggest brands have achieved life­long loy­alty from con­sumers and con­tinue to draw in more cus­tomers. This is because they have focused not only on the qual­ity of their prod­ucts, but also on the expe­ri­ence clients have when inter­act­ing with their brands.

When assess­ing your own company’s cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, con­sider sev­eral fac­tors; includ­ing how you want clients to feel after they have used your prod­uct or got­ten off the phone with one of your employ­ees, as well as how your ser­vice is going to improve their lives. Addi­tion­ally, think about what you want them to say to oth­ers when they talk about your brand. By defin­ing the over­all mes­sage of your prod­uct, you can start to work that into every facet of your busi­ness, from client ser­vice to prod­uct devel­op­ment to the sales and mar­ket­ing functions.

Con­struct­ing a nar­ra­tive arc

What do you do to make sure your clients’ expe­ri­ences have a begin­ning, a mid­dle and a happy end­ing? This is a clear exam­ple of how all the com­po­nents of a busi­ness are inter­wo­ven. Most likely, the first encounter a poten­tial client will have with your com­pany is through mar­ket­ing efforts.

Pay atten­tion to how you com­mu­ni­cate with prospects dur­ing this period and how you make them feel as you grad­u­ally move them through the sales process to even­tu­ally become clients. At that point, what do you do to make them feel val­ued and appre­ci­ated? How are you com­mu­ni­cat­ing — explic­itly and sub­lim­i­nally — that you and the client are part­ners on a jour­ney to solve the prob­lem or need that ini­tially led them to do busi­ness with you?

It may be when you are draft­ing your mar­ket­ing strat­egy that you pay the most atten­tion to cre­at­ing a nar­ra­tive for your clients, but it is in client rela­tion­ship man­age­ment that you tell the tale. In every inter­ac­tion, make sure that you are build­ing upon that ser­vice story, mov­ing toward clos­ing — a sat­is­fied client who is ready to start the next chap­ter of his or her rela­tion­ship with your busi­ness. To do so, iden­tify the con­flict (the ques­tion or prob­lem that your client is expe­ri­enc­ing) and main­tain intrigue by deliv­er­ing sur­prises (meet­ing and exceed­ing the client’s expectations).

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices training.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Client Relationship Management, Consumers, Covenant Group, Customer Experience, Experience Clients, Experiences, Facet, First Encounter, Interaction, Journey, Lifelong Loyalty, Marketing Efforts, Marketing Strategy, Narrative Arc, Product Marketing, Prospects, Sales And Marketing, Sales Marketing, Several Factors
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Recognize and Avoid Common Client Service Errors

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

by Anthony Lam,The Covenant Group
Man­ag­ing client rela­tions is a jug­gling act. Not only must you take care of all the details behind the scenes to ensure they receive their prod­ucts — by facil­i­tat­ing ser­vices and keep­ing oper­a­tions run­ning smoothly — but you must also tend to the details and pre­sen­ta­tion to sat­isfy the client. Many entre­pre­neursand client-facing employ­ees have strug­gled to bal­ance all of this. Although mis­takes are bound to hap­pen, here are a few com­mon errors that you should keep in mind and avoid at all costs.Don’t do all the talk­ing. Entre­pre­neurs and sales­peo­ple tend to be excited about the prod­ucts or ser­vices they offer, and that enthu­si­asm can lead to dom­i­nat­ing the con­ver­sa­tion. Whether in a sales meet­ing or sim­ply call­ing a client to catch up, spend more time ask­ing ques­tions and allow­ing your client to lead the dis­cus­sion. At The Covenant Group, we higl­hight the impor­tance of the client attrac­tion con­ver­sa­tion dur­ing the sales process and believe it is impor­tant to keep the same prinic­ple in mind in all client interactions.

It’s also impor­tant not to lose touch. If the only times you con­tact a client is to try to sell them some­thing or talk shop, you might make them feel as if they are noth­ing more than a dol­lar sign. Human­ize the rela­tion­ship by reach­ing out in between ser­vice calls. Send emails when you come across news arti­cles your clients may be inter­ested in and mail cards on their birthdays.

Tom Rieger of National Busi­ness Inno­va­tions iden­ti­fied another mis­take in a recent post for OPEN Forum. He warns busi­ness own­ers to steer clear of “treat­ing process as the out­come,” or assum­ing that fol­low­ing cer­tain steps by to the let­ter will always result in sat­is­fied, loyal clients. This is an error that can sink a company’s CRM efforts very quickly.

At the heart of client ser­vice is the real­iza­tion that every client is dif­fer­ent, no mat­ter how many char­ac­ter­is­tics or needs they may share with the other peo­ple or busi­nesses you serve. As such, you should never make assump­tions about your client’s needs or demands before talk­ing with him or her. Treat every inter­ac­tion as an oppor­tu­nity to learn more about the intri­ca­cies sur­round­ing your clients’ accounts. That said, you should also use past expe­ri­ences to pre­pare your­self for future sit­u­a­tions. Or, as Rieger says, “It’s okay to have a tool­box of processes and approaches, but rep­re­sen­ta­tives should be given some level of empow­er­ment to adapt to the specifics of the situation.”

What are some client ser­vice mis­steps that you’ve learned from? Are there com­mon mis­takes that you’ve com­mit­ted but have since learned to avoid? Please share your sto­ries in the com­ments section!

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices train­ing.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Birthdays, Bu, Business Innovations, Business Owners, Client Interactions, Covenant Group, Dollar Sign, Facilitating Services, Juggling Act, Loyal Clients, Mail Cards, Mistake, National Business, News Articles, Open Forum, Realization, Relationship, Rieger, Salespeople
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Are you the Apple of Financial Services? Part Four

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

by Anthony Lam, The Covenant Group

As the head of pro­gram deliv­ery and client rela­tion­ships here at The Covenant Group, I spend a lot of time think­ing about how we sup­port our clients, and in turn, the ser­vice lessons that our pro­gram par­tic­i­pants can learn from us. Which is one rea­son why I think it is so impor­tant that entre­pre­neurswho want to address their com­pa­nies’ client ser­vice mod­els first reflect on their own expe­ri­ences as a client or customer.

When call­ing a util­ity, air­line or retail com­pany with a ques­tion or com­plaint, did you have to wait for a long time, lis­ten­ing to a corporation’s hold sound­track on loop? Were you passed from one rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the next, with none of them able to solve your prob­lem or give you a defin­i­tive answer?

In past posts for this series, I have talked about how orga­ni­za­tions can learn from Apple’s metic­u­lous prod­uct design process and cus­tomer ser­vice model. Now I’d like to talk about how Apple has extended con­trol of the expe­ri­ence for the client to its employ­ees and how that has put the com­pany among the best in its class.

If you have ever been an Apple cus­tomer, what was your expe­ri­ence? Apple’s retail stores are famed for their cus­tomer ser­vice. As a dis­tant observer, I can only con­clude that one of the rea­sons for the company’s suc­cess is because it has empow­ered its employ­ees, Geniuses or not, to do what­ever they can to offer solu­tions to cus­tomers’ tech ques­tions and chal­lenges. Essen­tially, Apple has grasped one of the tenets of client rela­tion­ship management.

Giv­ing employ­ees skills and permission

It enables cus­tomer ser­vice by cre­at­ing sys­tems that make it easy for employ­ees to deliver client sat­is­fac­tion with prod­uct replace­ments, deep knowl­edge of the items they are sell­ing and a gen­uine com­mit­ment to help­ing the peo­ple who walk through their doors.

I remem­ber stum­bling across a Giz­modo post about Apple’s so-called “secret employee train­ing man­ual,” the “Genius Train­ing Stu­dent Work­book.” Edi­tor Sam Bid­dle explained that one of the lessons Apple con­veys to its newest employ­ees is the process of sell­ing: (A)pproach, ℗robe, ℗resent, (L)isten and (E)nd. By his telling, the com­pany encour­ages work­ers to share their own desires, wor­ries and needs with cus­tomers in an effort to cre­ate a deeper rela­tion­ship. As Carmine Gallo writes on the Forbes blog, Apple also walks its employ­ees through var­i­ous sce­nar­ios that they will likely encounter on the floor, and equips them with strate­gies to not only solve tech­ni­cal issues but also com­mu­ni­cate in an effec­tive way.

Con­sider your own employ­ees. Are they capa­ble of doing their jobs at the basic level, as well as guid­ing clients through any prob­lems to a solu­tion? If not, it may be time for you to take a peek at the Apple train­ing guide.

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices train­ing.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Client Relationship Management, Client Relationships, Client Satisfaction, Covenant Group, Customer Service Model, Definitive Answer, Distant Observer, Experience Apple, Financial Services, Genius Training, Geniuses, Genuine Commitment, Product Replacements, Program Delivery, Program Participants, Retail Company, Retail Stores, Service Models, Tenets
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Strive to Meet Every Service Factor

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

by Anthony Lam, The Covenant Group

What defines a suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur? It is the busi­ness builderwho real­izes that he or she is not only sell­ing a prod­uct or ser­vice to clients, but is also deliv­er­ing an expe­ri­ence. Client rela­tion­ship man­age­ment lasts long after the sales process is over. To main­tain a con­sis­tently high level of ser­vice, busi­ness own­ers need to address sev­eral points beyond the qual­ity and vari­ety of the prod­ucts they offer.

I was recently read­ing a blog post about cus­tomer ser­vice writ­ten by For­rester senior ana­lyst Kate Leggett, in which she puts a client-focused spin on the the­ory about the “four Ps of mar­ket­ing.” Regard­ing cus­tomer ser­vice, she says com­pa­nies should pri­or­i­tize another four Ps: Pain (the lack thereof), per­son­al­iza­tion, pro­duc­tiv­ity and proactivity.

Char­ac­ter­is­tics of top-notch service

How do you make the sales and ser­vice processes as sim­ple as pos­si­ble for your clients? Cre­ate sys­tems for them to con­tact you with ques­tions, con­cerns or com­plaints through their pre­ferred chan­nels. Show your appre­ci­a­tion for their busi­ness. Take the time to research answers to their ques­tions before you respond and be sure it is per­son­al­ized to their needs.

Extend­ing upon the point of pain­less inter­ac­tions, Leggett says cus­tomer ser­vice expe­ri­ences should also be pro­duc­tive. What processes have you put in place to help you ensure client sat­is­fac­tion effi­ciently, with­out drain­ing resources or money? Map out how you would like clients to be guided through the ini­tial point of con­tact to a com­pany rep­re­sen­ta­tive who can offer them solu­tions to their needs.

Antic­i­pat­ing your clients’ needs before they vocal­ize them will also demon­strate that you view the client-business con­nec­tion as a part­ner­ship, Leggett writes. “[Clients] want this proac­tive ser­vice to hap­pen, when­ever pos­si­ble, behind the scenes so that prob­lems are addressed before they hap­pen,” she adds.

Let me give you an exam­ple. Imag­ine you are rent­ing a mov­ing truck. Although you will also need boxes and mov­ing pads, you are unsure of how many you have and don’t know where to get them. An orga­ni­za­tion with a strong cus­tomer ser­vice sys­tem would have infor­ma­tion about box and mov­ing pad quan­ti­ties for past clients with a sim­i­lar num­ber of rooms. It would be able to make a rec­om­men­da­tion on the num­ber you should order and have them set aside when you come to pick up the truck.

What are you doing to make sure your clients feel no pain, receive per­son­al­ized care and are pro­vided with value-added ser­vice before they even know they need it? Are you tak­ing the long view with your client rela­tion­ships, look­ing beyond the sale to the last­ing rela­tion­ship on the horizon?

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices train­ing.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Business Builder, Business Connection, Client Business, Client Relationship Management, Client Satisfaction, Company Representative, Covenant Group, Initial Point, Leggett, Notch Service, Point Of Contact, Proactive Service, Proactivity, Renting A Moving Truck, Research Answers, Service Experiences, Service Processes, Several Points, Successful Entrepreneur
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Do Not Allow New Technologies to Impede Communications

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Ceos, Client Emails, Client Relationships, Company Culture, Corporate Culture, Economy Trade, Employment Policies, Financial Structure, Japanese Firms, Management Structure, Meaningful Connections, New Communication Technologies, Norm Trainor, Performance Management, Professional Communications, Text Messages, Text Messaging, Video Chat, Zest
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Deliver Common Services in an Uncommon Manner

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

by Anthony Lam, The Covenant Group
Although they may not real­ize it, the major­ity of com­pa­nies are actu­ally in the indus­try of client ser­vice — in com­par­i­son, their prod­uct offer­ings and sec­tors are minor details. The level of ser­vice that is offered in the forms of prod­uct qual­ity, pre­sen­ta­tion, avail­abil­ity and client sup­port is what usu­ally makes some­one choose to work with one orga­ni­za­tion over another. Essen­tially, the ser­vices and prod­ucts you offer mat­ter less than deliv­ery, which car­ries much more weight in a client’s deci­sion to begin or con­tinue doing busi­ness with you.This is a topic that gets a lot of atten­tion in the book Uncom­mon Ser­vice, co-authored by Anne Mor­riss, the Con­cire Lead­er­ship Insti­tute co-founder and chief knowl­edge offi­cer, and Frances Frei, a pro­fes­sor of ser­vice man­age­ment at Har­vard Busi­ness School. As they note, the way in which we serve each other plays a much big­ger role in push­ing the econ­omy for­ward than what we make.

I think this quote from Mor­riss and Frei sum­ma­rizes my point pretty well: “It’s easy to throw ser­vice into a mis­sion state­ment and peri­od­i­cally do what­ever it takes to make a cus­tomer happy … What’s hard is design­ing a ser­vice model that allows aver­age employ­ees — not just the excep­tional ones — to pro­duce ser­vice excel­lence as an every­day routine.”

Defy the sta­tus quo

How have you decided to make your ser­vices uncom­mon? Have you empha­sized the impor­tance of the client rela­tion­ship to every employee at every level of your orga­ni­za­tion? Sur­vey the ser­vice mod­els of your com­peti­tors, and seek out the gaps in their strate­gies that you can turn into your own strengths. Some com­pa­nies may be good at con­vert­ing prospects, but can­not retain clients because they fail to pro­vide sup­port after the ini­tial sale. Oth­ers deliver their ser­vices or prod­ucts in an imper­sonal man­ner, rely­ing on auto­mated mes­sages instead of deep­en­ing the con­nec­tion through per­son­al­ized emails, tele­phone calls and even in-person meetings.

Mor­riss and Frei warn against try­ing to be good at every­thing, since mas­ter­ing the art of ser­vice will mean you have to divert resources and ener­gies from other areas. (This is also a point that my col­league Matthew Asser made in a recent post, “Be More Effec­tive By Nar­row­ing Your Company’s Focus.”)

Think about the ways you can set your busi­ness apart from oth­ers and focus on a few areas where you can excel. Deter­mine the sta­tus quo for ser­vice deliv­ery in your indus­try, and then strive to break free from it.

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices train­ing.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Chief Knowledge Officer, Client Relationship, Co Founder, Common Services, Covenant Group, Everyday Routine, Harvard Business School, Leadership Institute, Minor Details, Morriss, Organization Survey, Product Offerings, Quality Presentation, Service Co, Service Excellence, Service Management, Service Model, Service Models, Uncommon Service
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Are you the Apple of Financial Services? Part Two

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

by Anthony Lam, The Covenant Group

Today, I’ll be dis­cussing the sec­ond topic in a series about how finan­cial ser­vices orga­ni­za­tions can emu­late Apple, which boasts high cus­tomer loy­alty and con­tin­u­ally impres­sive sales. While Apple’s retail loca­tions and cus­tomer sup­port strat­egy are major fac­tors in its suc­cess, I would argue that its prod­uct offer­ing is its true dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing fac­tor.
The design, the oper­at­ing sys­tem and the way the prod­ucts seam­lessly inte­grate with each other have all been cre­ated with the user in mind. For­mer Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously (some might say noto­ri­ously) strove for sim­ple, sleek design that strictly con­trolled the user expe­ri­ence. He also insisted that Apple soft­ware could only be run on Apple prod­ucts and all mobile appli­ca­tions for the iOS must be sold in the organization’s App Store, as noted in a pro­file in The New Yorker. This is an atti­tude that con­tin­ues in Jobs’ absence, most recently reit­er­ated by Jonathan Ive, the company’s senior vice pres­i­dent of indus­trial design.

In a recent speech at the British Embassy’s Cre­ative Sum­mit, Ive dis­cussed the atti­tude that Apple has toward the prod­ucts it cre­ates and dis­trib­utes. “We are really pleased with our rev­enues but our goal isn’t to make money,” he said, as quoted by Wired mag­a­zine. “It sounds a lit­tle flip­pant, but it’s the truth. Our goal and what makes us excited is to make great prod­ucts. If we are suc­cess­ful peo­ple will like them and if we are oper­a­tionally com­pe­tent, we will make money.”

I think that kind of goal is worth adopt­ing in finan­cial ser­vices as well. Rather than build­ing your finan­cial prod­uct and ser­vice offer­ing with the high­est rev­enue in mind, think about which options would be most suit­able and use­ful for your ideal client base. Whether sit­ting in ini­tial meet­ings with prospects or try­ing to pro­vide value-added ser­vice to exist­ing clients, how do you deter­mine the prod­ucts that would be best for them? Do you choose based on the qual­ity of the prod­ucts, or the ones that will pro­vide a greater return for your firm? Seek to deliver prod­ucts and ser­vice that assure a high-quality user expe­ri­ence and improve your clients’ lives, and you may enjoy the same level of brand loy­alty and suc­cess as Apple.

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices train­ing.

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Apple Ceo, Apple Products, Apple Software, British Embassy, Covenant Group, Customer Loyalty, Financial Services Organizations, Impressive Sales, Initial Meetings, Ios, Jonathan Ive, Mobile Applications, Product Offering, Retail Locations, Senior Vice President, Sleek Design, Steve Jobs, Support Strategy, Value Added Service
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