Implementing Shareworthy Service

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” – Walt Disney

I have been actively working on a theory for a couple months now, but I’ve been thinking about it for yeeeears. Two clients are beginning to test it. A couple more may follow.

As always, we will continue to increase our marketing budget as a percentage of sales, but we will be lowering our advertising budget.

Huh?

For years, owner-operated companies spent bazillions on things like the yellow pages – pouring buckets of cash into the last refuge for people who have no preference. Now, many of those same companies are using some of that money to buy bags of magic beans from social media experts.

Don’t get me wrong. I think social media’s a fantastic tool for listening and deepening a relationship and doing research and addressing customer concerns and sharing videos of singing dogs and stuff. It’s just not a broadcast or direct response medium. It’s terrible – for most owner operated companies – at direct response.

So my clients are participating in a grand and frightening experiment. We’re going to begin taking part of our ad budget and putting it back into our company’s best customers: our employees.

My partner Roy has said a million times: You cannot improve what you do not measure and reward.

Most managers love the measure part, but they turn the other way and whistle when you remind them about reward.

To implement this program, we started by asking these best customers – our employees – a series of questions about their ideal rewards – large and small. To get them to buy into this new way of thinking – that each employee is part of the marketing department – we have to start by painting a picture of what’s in it for them. Each of them has a different carrot at the end of the stick. If I’m right – if we do our job correctly – we’ll be able to reward them mightily.

How about you? Do you know what your team – your best customers – want, need and desire? I don’t mean “more money.” I mean specifics. Each one.

Does it bother you that you don’t know?

Then, we have to ask them more questions – you have to ask them questions about what would cause a customer to *want* to share an experience with your company.

You have to ask them about professionalism and kindness – what the defining characteristics of each one looks and feels like to your customers. You have to ask them for specifics.

You have to pull out worksheets with the 14 facets of shareworthy service and ask these most important customers of yours how each one could be dialed up with your company’s customers. Ask for specifics. Ask each employee. First, ask them not to share answers so you can see individual results. Then do it again and collaborate on answers.

You need to ask your employees what YOU can do to deliver shareworthy service to them – after all, they are your best customers.

What do they need from you – what resources can you provide them – to help them help your customers.

You’re going to have to ask them.

Wait – isn’t this an awful lot of work?

Absolutely.

Then, how can you measure and reward these tactics. If you have a shareworthy service contest, what are the ground rules?

You know who needs to set them? Your best customers – your employees – they need to OWN IT. They are uniquely qualified to be specific about definitions, systems of measurement, rewards big and small, and implementation.

A funny thing’s going to happen – I think – on the way to this new world. You’re all going to have a heck of a lot of fun along the way. You’re really, really going to enjoy coming to work every day and sharing stories of your own.

We’re going to continue advertising, don’t get me wrong. We’re just going to focus on media that allow us to harness the powers of emotion and story. And those stories aren’t going to be about margin-killing. Groupon? Eat it, Groupon.

Customer service is the new accelerant. Most companies say they need a facebook page. Why? I’m pretty sure they’d be better off focusing on delivering service worth sharing.

You want more likes?

Great. Give people something to actually, you know, like.

Of course … I could be wrong. About all of it. Are you ready to jump out on the skinny end of the branch and try it with us? I’ll give you the plan next week if you’ll help out some people who helped our family.

New eBook Coming Next Week

Your Customer Likes This – How To Deliver Shareworthy Service … I’ve got about 15,000 words – way more than I have had time to post here – collected in stories, emails, lessons and ways to implement a shareworthy service program in your organization. I’m turning it into a nice eBook with some worksheets. I was originally going to give it away for free, but my wife and I talked about it. We’ll make it available next week to download for a donation of any amount (starting at $0.99) to Touchpoint Autism Services – the organization that first taught us to communicate with our son. We can never fully repay them, but this’ll be a little way to try to start. Stay tuned …