Shep Hyken | Access to Innovators Podcast | Watch HPU

Chapters & Transcript

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Welcome to the Access to Innovators podcast powered by the premier life skills university, High Point University. Hello and thank you for joining us. My name is Elijah Summer and I'm a senior here at High Point University studying entrepreneurship and finance. Today I'm excited to go one-on-one with Mr. Shep Hyken, High Point University's customer experience expert in residence. Shep, thank you for joining us.

Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

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So I wanted to go ahead and just start things off with learning about you. You know, it can be so easy to focus on present day successes and where you are now, but what was in the background and the years of hard work and effort that you put in to get yourself here as an industry leader today?

How far do you want to go back? As far as to the very beginning.

Okay. So my mom and dad married, no, but it can actually I can start when I'm 12 years old. I did my first paid presentation. Uh so I am a customer service expert as you know or a customer experience expert. I travel around the world. I do keynote speeches. I've written books. We have training programs where our clients hire usually my trainers. I typically don't do the training but or we consult with them. Uh but it really started back at age 12 when I was hired to do my first gig and it was a birthday party magic show.

Oh wow. Yeah. And so I was at 12 years old. My mom picks me up. She drops me off this house. I'm at I go and I entertain these six-year-old kids. A bunch of little They're probably 25 of these little kids running around having a great time. On the way out, I got paid $15 plus a dollar tip, which was huge before tipping was really in vogue, right? So any hand out the little pad for you to click on. Yeah. Have my little cup to tips are appreciated. I want you to feel guilty if you don't tip me. No, I I I didn't do that. But I thought that was really cool. And that night at dinner, my mom, my dad, brother, sister, we're sitting around having dinner. And my mom says, "What are you going to do after dinner?" Now, it was a school night. So, what's the right answer?

My homework. Exactly. And And I She says, "That is the correct answer, but only after you write a thank you note to these people that just paid you that $16, which that was so long ago. $16 today would be worth like 2,400." I don't It would It'd be worth a lot more. But anyway, uh my dad said, "That is a great idea. I have another idea." Why don't you send the thank you note and in about a week call the parents and make sure they were happy. Thank them again and ask them what did you think of the show and get really specific. What did you like about the show? What were the tricks that you like the most? You know, what were your favorite tricks?" And and he said if you do this enough times, you'll start to notice a pattern of what the people will say are their favorite tricks. You'll also notice they don't talk about certain tricks. Those are the tricks you need to get rid of and replace them with tricks they will talk about. Now, that's how you create a better magic show. But really, I was learning customer experience skills. I had no idea. The first was show appreciation. That's obvious. We should always say thank you as often as possible. The second thing was go ask for feedback. Get feedback. Find out if you're doing a good job. And hearing the feedback is one thing, but acting on the feedback is another. And when I replaced those tricks, that is in essence process improvement. And made the show better.

And believe it or not, I think that's part of the reason by calling and thanking and of course asking for referrals. Uh that's how I grew this little business when I was age 12 to by the time I was age 14, 15, I was making as much as my teachers, working sometimes 8 to 10 magic shows a week. That's fantastic. Wow. Having a great time. So we we cut to other jobs that I've had. I've worked in restaurants. I worked at a gas station uh when I was in college. And I was always into making sure people were happy. And I know I'm giving you a long answer, but it's a fun story. When I worked at a self-service gas station and it was such a cold day and I noticed an elderly woman drive up and I'd seen her before and I walked out, I said, "Let me pump your gas for you." And I pumped the gas. I came in, the manager said, "What did you just do?" I I can't believe he didn't know what I did. He watched me. I pumped gas, right? And he goes, "Why did you do that?" I said, "Because she's probably 90 years old and it's very cold." Well, now she's going to expect it every time. I said, "You know, she might, but I'd rather her come here and expect it than go to the gas station across the street." Isn't that what we're trying to do?" She'll never forget that. Yeah. And and I just knew it was the right thing to do.

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So I graduate college wondering what I'm going to do. And I saw a couple of motivational speakers. Now, I had that entertainment background. And by the way, I graduated from doing uh birthday parties at age 14. I actually worked at my first nightclub at age 16. I worked at the Playboy clubs. That was like the most incredible job for a young man. went to college, did some corporate work, worked in comedy clubs, and I saw a couple of motivational speakers, Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins. You probably don't know who they are, and unless you're really really old, but the uh they they motivated me. They got me excited and I said, "That's what I can do." I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I knew after seeing them, they did this speech. I said, "I've got the entertainment background. I can get up on stage. I love business. I graduated college. I I'm a bit of an entrepreneur. I had other side businesses as well. And I I said, "That's what I'm going to do." I went to the store the next day, the bookstore, and I bought every customer service book. And by the way, I didn't think I'm going to go do this on customer service. I went to the store and I saw all these different books on business, but those were the ones that I was drawn to. So, I I I bought several of those books and that's really where it started. Tom Hopkins and his motivational talk. So, Zig Ziggler was all about goal setting. Tom Hopkins was about how to sell anything. And I bought his book and I said, "Okay, I'm gonna go make a list." I made a list of actually he called it the target 100. I I got 200 because I thought I might run out of people. And I just started smiling and dialing. There was no internet back then. So you had to pick up the phone and call people.

Cold calling. Yeah. And you know what's the worst that could happen? They say they're not interested. But I started booking speeches and the next thing you know I'm in this business. And uh that's how it all started. And um you asked like how do you become successful and build a career where you're recognized as an expert? Um over the years obviously I I didn't go to school to learn customer service and experience but and I don't think there even was a course or a path to that but all of the books that I read and every client that I work with taught me something new. And I really pride myself on something that's real easy. I take what could appear to be complicated and I make it simple. simplify the complicated. Customer experience is not that complicated, but companies can make it so. Uh, sometimes they have difficulty understanding how to create a culture that's focused on service and and taking care of others. And by the way, we're here at High Point University, which to me is the epitome of a university that understands how to take care of students and their families. And uh the stories that I know about firsthand from some of the people that work here as well as have gone here are just incredible. But I digress. Uh the way you become an expert today is to get recognized. The way to get recognized is take advantage of the social media platforms that are out there. I have a rigid 7 day a week schedule of content that I create. I uh a ferocious writer and I didn't start out that way. If you'd have told me I ever had to write another term paper again, I would have said no way at all. Yeah. But now I write three a week. You know, they're not huge long-term papers. I'm the king of the 5 to 600 word article. I can knock them out like that. Uh my Forbes column, they like it to be about 7 to 800 words or even a little bit longer. But the idea is um I'm disciplined in learning. I'm disciplined in interpreting and how I interpret it. And then I put it on paper. And by the way, I learned that if I put it on paper, I remember it so much better. Um, I worked with somebody that said, "Let me help you create your content. What do you want to talk about or write about this week?" And I had this report and I outlined the bullet points and I said, "These are the bullet points that I I want to make sure go into this article." And then the person brought me back an article with all the things I thought were important. I did a few tweaks to it. We posted it and then somebody asked me about it. I didn't know what they were talking about. And I realized the reason is is because I even though I was involved and chose what I wanted, I didn't put it into the brain the right way. And I think that's so important. So anyway, I know I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent, but that's what I do sometimes. Yeah. Hopefully I give you more answers than the questions that you ask. You're the heart leads. I'm all here for it. There you go. I love that.

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Absolutely. As a uh customer, I guess you could say myself at High Point and with a little sister here too, that mentality of constant improvement and growth that you talk about is so important. I mean, just to see yourself go from, I guess you could say, a local kid celebrity to a truly respected industry expert. I I don't know if being a birthday party magician would be a local kid celebrity, but let me give you a little credit here where it's due. Okay, chef, thank you very much. That's awesome. I should have just gone with that one. Yeah, just rolling all day. Yeah, local celebrity at age 12. That's cool.

Truly famous names across the billboards and dazzling lights. But so obviously I want to get your insight and your expertise on the CX and customer service industries. But for for the listeners here and for the watchers um customer service, customer experience, what's the difference? Where's the overlap?

Yeah. Many years ago when I started it was just customer service. Nobody even heard of the term customer experience. At least not the way it's being used today. So service was how you took care of people. I had the idea that it's not just when there's a complaint or a problem and you call somebody and ask for help. I believe you serve somebody through the entire journey from the moment that they think about doing business with you and start interacting with you till when they finally do and ideally come back and get more in and they're a repeat customer.

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Many years ago, even before I started my business, a gentleman named Jan Carlson, who was the head of Scandinavian Airlines, was asked to take over the airline when it was losing millions of dollars. And he turned it around with a real simple concept. He went to every airport they had a presence throughout Europe and he sat down with every employee in an airplane hangar and he talked about this concept called the moment of truth. And it was anytime a customer, in his case it was a passenger, comes into contact with any aspect of a business, they form an impression. And he said, "We need to manage these impressions." And he said, "The first thing the customer does is make a reservation." Now, back then, you picked up the phone. Today, you usually go online. But even an online interaction, it's a human created this this website and this this process for other humans to use. but he focused mostly on the humanto human interactions which still today are very important. So you make a reservation, you check your bag at the curb, you go into the gate uh and you're taken care by a gate agent, the flight attendant. All of these interactions take place and if somebody has a problem, well then they pick up the phone and they call quote customer service but really service is happening the entire journey. So I believe customer service is really customer support. Now, service or support is happening throughout the whole customer experience. And the experience even goes beyond the interactions you have with people. It could be uh you know, I just received my box from Amazon and I look at that little happy smiley arrow and I'm excited because I know what's in it and and and by the way, it's a beautiful box and they open up. If you buy something from Apple, that is not a beautiful box. That's a super cool box, you know, high-tech and it's really first impressions. Yeah, I know. And so all of that is part of that experience.

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And of course uh somebody once said and I think they were pretty smart. They said customer service is what happens when customer experience goes wrong. And I say pretty close. Customer service as I mentioned happens throughout the entire journey. It's customer support is what happens when things go wrong. And I just wrote an article um I acknowledge my friend Tom Baldwin and I met Tom when he was the CEO of Morton's the steakhouse. very well-known steakhouse chain throughout the world. He since went on to Benihana and a couple other places, but uh he said, "My definition of great service is when mistakes are handled well because nobody ever walks out of my restaurant unhappy." And I thought, "Okay." And we assume everything's going to go well, but when it doesn't, how do you recover and make people say, "I'll be back." It's easy to look like a pro in a you know when it's smooth sailing but it's really those hard moments those moments of conflict that uh true leaders and experts are uh you know are defined.

So given what you've seen in the industry and you know close colleagues, friends, whatever it may be, what are some notable organizations and institutions that you see excel in the customer experience realm and then you know what makes them so exceptional? What is it that makes them stand out? Sure. And this is a a great question and the reason is is it sets me up for something that you probably had no idea I was about to say and that is this. The brands that are excelling Yeah. are actually setting the bar higher for every other brand that isn't. And the point I make and I open many of my speeches with this and tomorrow when I talk to uh some of the team here at HPU, I'm going to be talking about how we're not compared to direct competition which might be another university. The experiences that we are compared to come from Amazon, Apple, American Express. Look at that. I'm using all A's. You should see how long it takes for me to get to Z. But Zappos, uh, Ritz Carlton, uh, all Lexus, uh, and all these great brands that are iconic and are known for a great service experience.

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So, um, couple of things there. We need to recognize number one, if they're setting the bar, the question is, we want to create a great experience. What do we need to do? do we need to be as good as Amazon or Apple or one of these amazing companies? And the answer is no. What you want to do to create the experience is what they've done. They've created um an experience in a form of what I would call a promise or a commitment to their customer. They made a promise and they kept it. And to me, that's the definition of a good brand. A brand isn't what you want the customer Well, it is what you want the customer to think about you. However, it's the customer's decision is to actually will they think that way about you. So, they get to decide whether you kept the promise or not. And these brands are doing such a great job, but what they're really doing at the end of the day is just meeting the expectation that they've created. So, if you can make a promise and keep it and the experience is consistent and predictable, that's the key.

So, I had a great opportunity to get to know Hor Scholes, who's the uh first president and co-founder of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Group. And when they first started to become this chain of hotels, he was brought in and I've met with him. I've interviewed him for my show uh my podcast as well a couple of times and we see each other out once in a while. The uh cool thing is I said, "What does it take to be an iconic brand?" And I would have thought, you know, known for great service and experience. I would have thought he would have gone into a deep like long answer kind of like I'm doing here. No, but he made it pretty short. He says, "We just do what's expected and maybe we do it a tiny little bit better. We we can go over the top once in a while, but if we do what we're expected to do, maybe just a tiny little bit better than average." I go, "Well, define what a tiny little bit better than average means." And he says, "Maybe it's 10%."

So, and I said, "Let's clarify this. If on a scale of 1 to five, where one is bad and five is great or amazing or excellent or whatever, you're telling me 10% better, threes in the middle, let's call that average, you've got to be a 3.3." He goes, "Yeah, but you have to do it consistently." And that's the hard part. You can never drop to a three. You can never drop below a three. And by the way, problems are going to happen. And and once again back to my friend Tom Baldwin who said mistakes handled well. So the goal would be that in a typical interaction people would say oh yeah that was great. And uh what you want them to use the word always in front of something positive like they're always so helpful. They're always so knowledgeable. They're always friendly. They always get back to me quickly. Even when there's a problem I know I can always count on them. And I said well give me an example. Okay I get that. That's the whole consistent predictable thing that I've been talking about for years and years. But tell me what 10% better means. He goes, "You get out of the car, you're at a Ritz Carlton, and whoever's at the front door looks at your baggage uh tag on your suitcase and says, "Oh, are you Mr. Hyken?" That's me. Yes. Well, welcome to the Ritz Carlton, Mr. Hyken. Come on in. And we go to the front desk and this person says, "This is Mr. Hyken. He's here to check in." And later on, I'm walking out and maybe the front desk person or the uh person working the doors recognizes me from earlier and say, "Hey, Mr. Hyken, how was your room?" Or, "Where are you go?" You know, just they're using my name. Using my name is not like over the top, okay? But it's just a little bit better than average. And little things like that count.

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Now, you will have the opportunity to go over the top. When there's a mistake and there's a problem, you want to win somebody back. or maybe it's just an issue and um they're doing everything they can to help me. They work late, they work hard, they add somebody to the, you know, help me out. There's so many things that are over the top, but we can't wait for over-the-top experiences to happen. As a matter of fact, the goal would be let's not have a need for over-the-top. Uh there are chances that you can overhear, if you're a server at a restaurant, you hear, "Oh, it's their anniversary. I hear them talking. It's their 10 year anniversary. I'm going to surprise them with a little cake and a candle. And that's a little over the top and it's a surprise, but once again, you can't wait for those to happen at every interaction. They're not going to. So, just consistently and predictably meet the expectation that you've promised that customer you're going to make and maybe exceed it ever so slightly when given the opportunity. And that's what gets customers to come back because people, you know, people really like to know what to expect and they don't want to be disappointed. So, if you walk into the Ritz in, suddenly it's turned into a roadside motel. Oh, I'm sure that's going to be Oh, I know. Yeah. Quite different response than, you know, if you walked into a uh, you know, any other chain. It was just average experience, but as you'd expect, it's going above and beyond that really, like you said, you define yourselves and you have those opportunities for growth. Do you like Chick-fil-A? I know there's a Chick-fil-A on campus here. Of course. I've been eagerly waiting this new one to open. We're doing it for us students. It's going to be three times the size. Absolutely. Oh, wow. So, here's what's cool about Chick-fil-A, and I'm just going to talk about the experience, not a aside from they are a company with a cause and a belief, and that attracts people, and that's a whole another side of customer experience, but from the actual experience and interacting with them. They're just pleasant people, aren't they? They're always friendly and it's always a pleasure. It's, you know, and by the way, I don't have a problem when somebody when I say thank you and they go, "No problem." I know what they mean. Some people go, "Well, is there really a problem?" No. No, there isn't a problem. It's just the way they've been saying that their whole life. But they are trained to say things like, you know, when you say thank you. Oh, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure to serve you. And I think it's so nice when people, especially at young age, because a lot of those folks who work at Chick-fil-A and other restaurants like that, they're at a young age and they are learning what I think are the most important communication skills. How to show appreciation to the customers, the people you work with, give them respect and the dignity that they deserve.

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Um, I know we got off the topic here. Uh, but what was the original question? Yeah. No, circling back to that, you were actually uh perfectly tracking in the right direction. So, you mentioned obviously paying attention to that extra 10% with the corporate level, but then also on the individual level, my pleasure and the small things you can do there. What are some ways that you can take this uh customer forward mindset and then translate that to just the individual level of how you can pursue forward and see great steps in your career and in personal relationships and so on?

Sure. Um are you asking what I did or what I'm suggesting others? What would you suggest others? Yeah. Um you know uh I'm going to go back uh I interviewed this gentleman a number of years ago for one of my books, The Amazement Revolution. His name's Jim Bush. At the time he was a senior VP worldwide of customer service and experience for American Express, well known for being a very good brand. And when he ran it, uh what was really cool, he said, "If I have a choice of hiring somebody that's," and by the way, he was in charge of all the customer support centers around the world. If I have a choice of hiring somebody that has, you know, customer support center experience or somebody that worked at a restaurant, I'm going to hire the person that worked at the restaurant because they have this hospitality mentality and I don't have to train that part of it. I can train these people who have that mentality, this positive experience mentality to work the screens and do the computer programs, but if I've got somebody that's just really good at typing in information and relaying information, but doesn't have that um capability of creating the experience through empathy and communication, that's a little bit harder skill to teach. So, I think so much of what happens today is a mindset. It's a mindset that you have to adopt and accept. Um, and um, there's many different ways to go about it. As I mentioned, being amazing isn't about being over the top. It's meeting expectations. It's always keeping your promise. It's um, you know, if you make a commitment, you and something doesn't work, you don't say, "Oh, that was their fault, not my fault." Um, I once went to a restaurant and the server, it was just a terrible experience and brought out all the salads and the salad from my friend there looked like it was gone. Everybody else had nice salad. He goes, "What happened to my salad?" And and and the and the gentleman, I call him a gentleman. The server said to my friend, "I don't make them. I just serve him." And turned around and walked away. And basically what he did in that one moment is he did acknowledge there was a problem, but he he blamed somebody else for the problem rather than saying, "Oh, I am so sorry that happened. I should have noticed before I put this down, but you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go back and get you another one right away." Not blaming anybody and just taking responsibility.

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Matter of fact, I came here to HPU. I've been here many times and I was talking to somebody, a very young student. I believe it was her freshman year and I want to say you actually refer to her as a concierge. You have concierge around the campus, right? And and I said, "So, what do you like about this?" She goes, "I love solving people's problems." And I go, "Really? Tell me more." And this is what she said. "It may not be my fault, but it is my opportunity to take care of them." I just love that mentality and that way of thinking. And there are people that absolutely would be scared to death to be in that job because they don't understand how to deal with conflict and any kind of issues that might come up. Yet, there are others like this student who just says, "Bring it on. I love this. This is what I'm meant to be." And some of the best customer support people. Uh just today, for example, I came there was an issue with my bag, which was not a check bag. It was a carry-on bag, but it didn't come up where, you know, they have to check it plane side because they don't have the overhead space. Oh, it'll be waiting for you when you get off the the plane. It wasn't. Okay. And I went and I said something and she and I said, "I've really got to hurry." You know what she did? She didn't say, "Well, it's going to come out." No, she went back, opened the door behind wherever hap whatever happens behind the scenes there. She asked me to describe the bag. I said, "It looks like everybody else's bag except I've got a yellow handle." She came out three minutes later. There it was. She didn't have to do that. And I think sometimes people just have it inside them. This is what they like to do. And you look for that and you hire for that. And or if they don't actually have it, but you can recognize the seed is there. It just needs to germinate because of you know their background and you talk to them about their experiences. I think that's who you end up hiring and that that's the person that you want working with. those opportunities to solve problems that you know the high the higher-ups the managers might not even realize were ever a problem in the first place but those those really did diligent really hardworking individuals at the face-to-face level that really make a difference.

Yeah. And by the way what you just said is I it drives me crazy when a manager a supervisor or a higher up even the C-level people of a company don't have any idea what's going on at the front line. So there was one in my most recent book titled I'll be back which has nothing to do with the terminator. Okay, but it has to do with getting customers to come back again and again. Um I wrote about this exact scenario. And even in my very first book I wrote how Anheuser Busch executives were required once a quarter to go out in the field with a salesperson and talk to people at grocery stores and and the bars and the restaurants that bought the product. Right. Well, this gentleman went down to the call center. we'll call it the call center uh where the phones are and started taking customer support calls and hung up the phone and the manager came over and said there's a woman here that has asked for you by name. Oh wow. Said this young young man William took care of me. Now the company was Microsoft and the young man wasn't so young. It was William as in Bill Gates himself going down to the front line to listen in on calls and actually take calls to understand exactly what customers are saying about the products that Microsoft sells. That personal touch is can be so integral and you know the kingpin a lot of times of what makes these companies tick and what makes you sets the great apart from the good. Yeah. Um, you mentioned like the face to face and the personal interaction there and the important of that importance of that connection especially in call centers. That brings me to one of my questions about the uh buzzword of the hour. I guess you could say AI. So I wanted I thought we can go a whole interview without talking about AI. Okay, we will have to do it. It'd be a crime not to at this point. But with that said, so there's these AI call centers now where you think you're talking to a human and it's really a robot or the AI chat bots or you know go on a website, you just want to find a person and there's no way to actually just get connected with one. What is your take on how you see AI either being of a benefit or a detriment to the customer service and customer experience fields?

Sure. That there is so much that we can unpack here. How much time do we have? Do we have an hour, two hours, three hours? Because if we got all day. Okay, so here's the thing. First of all, I'm a huge fan of AI. I started attending IBM. Uh IBM is a now it's a totally different company. They used to make computers. Now they're primarily a software company. And I attended the Watson conferences. Watson was their first artificial intelligence product 10 years ago. And this is they find the big deal was Watson went on and competed on Jeopardy against humans who were like the top Jeopardy champions of you know the the game show and beat them because it not only was able to access information about the question but it understood the context of the question which means it was actually thinking. The reality of it is to put that into a company 10 years ago cost hundreds of thousands if not even a million or more dollars. Well, today any company can afford an AI solution that was so similar. It's like our cell phones. Now those are little computers. Do you know that, you know, back probably about the time you were born, a computer like that it it would take up half this room. You know, it it's but look now it's in our hands and it's cheap, right? So, it's so inexpensive. But here's to your point. Sometimes companies lose sight of the balance that's needed between the machine AI and the human experience which has empathy and and some type of relationship builder. At this point in time, and I don't think in the near future, we're not going to be able to teach AI and the computer to be empathetic towards somebody. Uh I don't think we're going to get there. I think first of all, you know, you're not talking to a person. And that, by the way, you said you don't even know you're talking. I think a company that tries to fake you out is making a big mistake. Absolutely. A company could have fun. Hey, I'm George, your your AI assistant today. And by the way, if at any time during this interaction or conversation or whatever you want to call it, you feel you're not getting what you need, just let me know you want to talk to a live agent and I'll be happy to pass you through. But let me see what I can do before we get there. So today, most of the time, AI is used to take the first part of a support call and determine who should get it or can it be answered easily right now. So here's my question to you. I'll ask you a question. Would you rather wait 10 or 15 minutes on hold or would you rather get your problem resolved right now?

Oh, right now. Great. So where's the first place you go when you want to make a phone call to the contact center of a company? Where do you go? Hop on, you're on hold, and then you get the No, no, no. Before you even dial the phone, the website. Exactly. So, as long as you're on the website, you've already started the digital experience. Okay. There's a phone number. What if next to it said, "By the way, depending what your question is, we might be able to answer it right here and you won't even have to make the phone call and wait on hold. If you have an account, maybe you're using your phone, facial recognition, you don't even have to put your password in because it recognizes you. But as soon as it knows who you are, it might, you know, like I call up and and American Airlines recognizes my phone number and says, um, you know, first of all, are you calling about the flight you're taking today? Okay. And if the answer is yes, it starts interacting with me about the flight. I don't have to even talk to a human being. So when you have a system that's set up to do that, it's great. Um, it's the mistake that companies make when they think they can hide behind the technology and eliminate the human altogether. I think it's a big mistake because the even I don't know what it is. There's I can't think of I mean any company that wouldn't have a problem that at some point would require human to human interaction. I'm not sure. But regardless, I'll share with you some statistics. I do research every year. Um we research consumers based on the US census. So between 18 and 65, it's a perfect mirror of what this population is about. Yeah. And as of this year, 70% of customers in the United States would rather pick up the phone than make than then go to the self-service digital experience. Even though most of them started out on a website, which was the beginning of the digital experience, right? 30% said, "Yeah, I'd like to go digital first." Of the uh 70%, 51% are Gen Z, which you fall into that category. And 82% are the boomers, which are the older folks. So you can see who's tipping the scale a little bit. But here's another interesting stat. 26% of customers said if you do not offer me a selfservice option, and it's an option. It's not like you have to use self-service. If it's not there, they will not do business with you. Oh wow. Just an absolute non-stop. Yeah. They said, "Look, yeah, if I got a problem, I don't want to have to wait on hold. You've got to give me this option." And because it's okay if the option is, uh, I'm going to start there and I'm not getting what I want and I finally move into talking to a person. And by the way, that's the next step is if you do get transferred to a live agent and you could be typing on a bot. Let me step back a moment. Some AI virtual assistants when you call, push one for this, two for that, three for that, and you're interacting with a voice. All they're doing at that point is trying to get you to the right place. Okay? And that's a great use of AI because then the human gets involved, right? But let's say you're on you're on the you're typing away or you're using your thumbs and you're typing your messages and it can be in an app it could be direct to a phone number you know that you text to or you're on a website at any time when you go to switch over how long are you going to have to wait so that's the next step if I or if I have to pick up the phone and call are you going to make me wait 10 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes it's so inexpensive today to have a technology that says your wait time will be x number of minutes I'm going to give you an option. You can hold and listen to the beautiful music or we can call you back at about this time and it the consumer or the customer is going to feel like you know what at least they respect my time. Respect is really important in today. A customer wants to be respected. So there's so many things that I could talk about related to AI. I think it's a really good thing. I also believe it's only going to get better. We're in the infancy of it all and there will be a point in time where it will be somewhat indistinguishable between humans and the bot. However, these companies still need to tell us we're not dealing with a human and give us the option to do so. And the beautiful thing is if it's done right, it seamlessly connects me and the conversation continues. I don't have to start over. They can say, "I see you've been talking to a bot. Uh, and I see you aren't getting you were talking about this order. Is that right?" Yeah. and you didn't get the and so it just the conversation continues. It should be an enhancement, not a replacement. Exactly. Well, you should write an article or a book about that. Hey, I might have a uh column writer or two that could possibly give me some credibility here.

34:41

Um, so going back, you mentioned when we were talking about the airlines, the beginning of our conversation, a moment of truth. Yes. Yes. Now, in your 2017 book, Be Amazing or Go Home: Seven Customer Service Habits That Create Confidence with Everyone, you wrote, "Every moment of truth, even if it is a moment of misery, is an opportunity to create a moment of magic." Yes. So, I'd appreciate if you could share some with the audience and myself about the genesis of this revelation and really what what led you to that point. Well, once again, mist mistakes handled well. Um, and a moment of truth, everything doesn't go the way it should go. Once in a while there's going to be a problem and it's the way we resolve the problem and get the customer back to loving us and that's taking that moment of misery and turning it into a moment of magic. So Yan Carlson who I talked about earlier, the airline example, he said moments of truth go one of two ways. There's good and there's bad. Okay, let's try to make them all good. I say there's a third way. There's bad. I call those moments of misery. Those are complaints, problems, or just a bad experience. Then there's a really dangerous one. It's called the moment of mediocrity. It's where it's just average. People don't always complain about average. They just move on and go do business. Yeah. It's not just forgettable. It's it's memorable enough that if you see something that's even a little bit better than average, you just jump ship and you go over there. And people say, "Well, they never complain." Well, yeah, because it just wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. And the moment of magic is anything that's better than average, the slightest bit better or it could be over the top better. It it's once again we're back to that meeting the expectation and being ever so slightly better in some situations but at the end of the day if people say you know they always again fill in the blank with something positive it's done.

So when a mistake happens a problem a complaint the goal is not to just fix it. The goal is to restore confidence. The goal is to move that person to saying I'm really glad that I brought this to your attention. I appreciate the way you handled it. And if this is the way you handle all of your mistakes and problems, you've got me for life. And that's what we're trying to achieve. Uh the person who set that salad down and it was wrong. I told you what they should have done. So I talk about this five-step process to manage a complaint. Number one is you acknowledge and number two, you apologize or the other way around. Those two things happen first in either order. This server could have said, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't notice that." There's your acknowledgement. I am so sorry. I'm gonna go back. Now comes the resolution. You talk about what you're gonna do to fix it. Number four is you own it. Even if it's not your fault. We talked about what the the student here said. Even though they're not my fault, they're my opportunities. You kind of have this sense of I'm going to take care of you. And by the way, that doesn't mean you are the one. I mean, I'm sure the server doesn't go back and make the salad fresh themselves. They have somebody else help them. Okay? So it doesn't mean you're you're the one that absolutely has to do it, but you're now in charge of making sure it gets to the next step. And number five, you act with urgency. So acknowledge, apologize, fix it, uh own it, if you want to call it that, and then act with urgency. So when the server says, "I'm so sorry. I should have noticed that. There's your acknowledgement. Let me go in back and get you another one. I will be right back." And there's your steps three, four, and five happening in that one sentence. And when they do finally bring it back a moment or two later, you go, "Wow, thank you very much." You're a lot more forgiving and understanding at that point versus the dismissive nature. Obviously, you know, like you like you mentioned, when you see the uh the consistency and the outcome in the product, you're getting that 3.3 every single time and then the competence to solve the problem. That's where you build the trust and the loyalty and those customers that are really with you for a lifetime. Right? And the beautiful thing about that 3.3 every time is that earns you a five. You don't get a 3.3 cuz you were never down to a three. And the fact that you always did what you said you're going to do, they know they can count on you. Once again, predictable and consistent experiences win. Exactly. And like you said, it's all relative. You're not you're not graded in a vacuum. You're graded relative to all the other companies out there. Yeah. You're being compared not just to the competition, but to any company that customers had a great experience with. says, "Why can't they be as good as and you can name the company?" Or it could even be a brand and that's like the shoe repair store down the street. Every time I go in there, they know my name. They always they they tell me it's going to be ready on Friday. They call me Wednesday. They say, "Hey, it's ready when you want to pick it up." Every time. So, they create the expectation and they always exceed it.

40:00

Yeah. I'm sure we all have that experience with a really sweet tailor or dry cleaner, whatever it is, who is just smile on their face and you can trust them and it's why you stick with the same one long term. But uh so what do you see as the biggest pitfalls in customer service right now? And then with that where do you see the biggest opportunities for growth or to move forward from that?

Sure. Well, there's a couple of pitfalls uh that I think are worth mentioning. Number one is people uh and the problem is where where companies are starting to hire people that aren't um they aren't the right fit or they're not properly trained. So part of it is you made a bad hire, but the other part is I also think that the biggest pitfall, by the way, if you don't have the people, there's nothing you can do about the biggest pitfall because it's about the culture of a company. Because if you don't hire the right people, they're going to fit in with the culture. The culture is never going to do what it's supposed to do. And the culture, if you want to create a culture where customer experience is really important, the mantra has to begin at the top. uh the CEO or the all of the C-suite have to decide what is the customer experience promise that we're going to make. I advocate for a one sentence statement that is so easy to understand that it anybody can remember it who comes to work there and uh back to the Ritz Carlton nine words we're ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen and they may have to change that in today's woke society but let's assume that this has been working for many years when you come to work there you understand is this who we are and then you can always flip it around and ask a question are you acting like a lady or a gentleman serving being a lady or gentleman if they go maybe not. It's an easy question to get a yes or no answer. It's so approachable. Yeah. But you create this statement which oftentimes is already in the mission and values type statements that companies have. You just pull it out and make it one sentence so everybody can kind of hang on to that and then you communicate it. You train everybody to it and everybody has a job that will impact the customer. We'll go back to the airline example. If I work in baggage claim and uh I never see the passenger's face, but if I for some reason don't get that bag to where it's supposed to go, it was my fault. Yeah. Right. And even though I never see that passenger, I created that bad experience. So everybody has a role in the process or the experience even if they're deep behind the scenes. So that whole culture thing so important and again it starts at the top. One of the coolest questions I I I well it's not a the question wasn't that cool. It was the answer. I asked I think about 375 highlevel C executives uh from different companies like CEOs what is your most important job that you do and I heard everything from I look for deals mergers you know that kind of but one out of 375 said I defend the culture and even though the company has grown and grown and grown and grown he feels that if we don't manage that culture there's no way we can grow it to win you're gonna lose the plot long term yeah So, I just think that's a real important piece of it that could be a pitfall if you don't manage it well. And I think that not even just in a corporate environment, but just overarching, it's a great philosophy or leader to take is no matter if it's three people you're guiding or 3,000, if you don't believe yourself inherently, what you're what you're standing for, things are going to spread. Things are going to fall apart. Yeah. And and you can't say, "Let's go do it," and then treat people differently. I mean, it's got to be very congruent behavior. Uh I have this idea. I talk about called the employee golden rule. And you know the golden rule we grow up with. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Or he who has the gold makes the rules. No, I'm just kidding. Uh but no, you're right. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Well, the employee golden rule is to treat the people you work with the way you want your customers treated. And again, I use that customer word as a catchall. Passenger, client, student, family member, whatever. Uh patient. Uh there's so many. Anybody that does business with you, they're your customer, if you will. So, um, you you treat them the way they want to be treated is a powerful way or I'm sorry, you treat your employees the way you want your customers treated. Is a powerful example internally because you can't uh yell at somebody, tell them they're doing a terrible job, and say, "Now go out there and be nice." I mean, it's incongruent behavior. Yeah. Then you don't want a frustrated employee who feels that they're not cared for, right? Oh, yeah. Now, spin this on. Why don't I just treat the customer the way you, my boss, treats me, you because then it just becomes a funnel straight through from the top down.

42:48

Um, so talking about those one-on-one customer service experiences, um, what's your biggest wow moment of standout exceptional customer service that you've seen firsthand? Oh my gosh, there's so many of them. We can do a top five then. Well, um, I tell a story about a taxi cab driver. Okay. And, uh, there's still taxis out there. I mean, the Ubers and Lifts disrupted the taxi cab industry, but there's still taxis out there. Even here at the Greensboro airport, uh, there are still taxi cabs, the purple ones moving around. And here's the cool thing. This guy, it was many years ago. He said to me, I got to know him because it was an amazing experience. I got so lucky to get this guy. He he took me from downtown in Dallas out to the airport and he had just dropped someone off. Otherwise, he was going back to the airport not to wait in line, but to pick up his next appointment, his next client that he had. And what he did is he realized he could wait in line two and three hours at an airport, pick up somebody, go downtown for $25 and go back and do it all over again. Or he could be so good that he could create appointments and he wouldn't have to wait in line anymore. Yeah. And just constantly work. the average cab driver back when he started, not it was long before I met him, uh was making about $20,000 a year, a little less than that. And he said he realized that, you know, and back then that was probably the equivalent of making maybe 40 50,000. Not a great living, but I mean it's a start. And he said, "I realized if I did a great job, I don't have to wait in line. I give them my card, they'll call me." And that's what happened. And he said within one year, he was making over $100,000. And again, that was probably over 20 years ago. And think about $100,000 20 years ago is probably more like 200 250 today. That is good money for driving a taxi cab.

So, um I I was so impressed meeting this guy and the way he handled me and he even get this a taxi cab driver wrote me a thank you note. So, he asked for my business card as I left and he gave me his card and he said, "Call me the next time you come in and I collect the cards of the people that I drive. can I have your card? And little did I know that four days later I was going to end up having a thank you note in my, you know, in my mailbox. And then every holiday until he retired, he'd send me a holiday card. And he went from barely getting by and just, you know, making it day-to-day to building a proper career for himself by exceeding expectations. All he did and he loved it. And and it's like he offered everybody sodas and he had a and I said, "This is great." And he told me, he goes, "You know, I give most people don't drink the soda cuz it's in a little bucket. It's It's their way to most people drink the soda, but what's amazing is when you offer the soda, which cost about 25 cents, they give you like an extra $3 on the tip. Yeah. And just for offering the soda, that extra 10%. Exactly. Mhm. Yep.

Shep Hyken, High Point University's customer experience expert in residence, shares his journey from childhood magician to renowned customer service speaker and author. Hyken explains the foundational customer experience principles he learned early on—asking for feedback, showing appreciation, and continuous improvement—and discusses how brands like Ritz-Carlton, Chick-fil-A, and Amazon excel by making promises and consistently keeping them. He addresses the emerging role of AI in customer service, emphasizing that technology should enhance human interaction, not replace it, and shares the five-step process for turning customer complaints into moments of magic: acknowledge, apologize, resolve, own it, and act with urgency.

Shep Hyken | Access to Innovators Podcast

Shep Hyken | Access to Innovators Podcast

Who is High Point University's Customer Experience Expert?

How can asking for feedback improve your business?

How can you become a recognized expert in your industry?

Customer service vs experience: What is the difference?

What is the Moment of Truth in customer service?

Which brands excel at providing a great customer experience?

How does the Ritz-Carlton define great customer service?

Why is Chick-fil-A's customer service so successful?

Why is a hospitality mentality important in business?

How will AI impact the future of customer service?

How do you turn a complaint into a moment of magic?

What are the biggest pitfalls in customer service today?

What is an example of exceptional customer service?