Happy Customers, Happy Career: The Power of Satisfaction

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're still on the series about how sales skills can help with personal growth and development. And today we're going to be looking at customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction skills and how that can help you build a career and how that can assist in your personal development. Now First off, we have to define what customer satisfaction is. Of course, that's hard to define. But from a traditional sales and business development perspective, there are two elements that we should be looking at when we're trying to figure out the customer satisfaction equation.

So the first thing we're going to look at is, is the customer happy? And the second thing we're going to be looking at is, was the brand promise of the product or the service achieved or was it met now is the customer happy? That is the much more subjective part of the equation. It's the feel good equation or trying to figure out if the customer had pleasant experiences, if they had a pleasant user experience. And these sorts of things are easy to tell.

You're able to pick up on the feel good vibes if you're having a conversation with someone over the phone or you're having a conversation with someone in person. You're not going to get a good sense of this if you use e-mail. Because e-mail is flat, it's formal, it's official and you get no nuance in in personal expression. Of course, That's one of the reasons why I keep hopping back to the whole communication hierarchy.

Now about the brand promise. If the brand promise of the product or service was met, sometimes it can be a much more objective thing to filter through depending on the product or the service that we're looking at. Now, if you remember when I started off this this current season, I was the example that I came up with was for the father of a bride who goes to the market because he wants to buy a cow for the wedding and whether he's looking at local cows or imported booze of cows from South Africa.

Now for those of you who've been listening to the last four or five episodes, you know what it is that I'm talking about. If this is your first time of listening to the episode, then when you're done listening with this, then skip back until you get to the first episode in this current narrative arc and you get caught up to speed. So now in this case, where the father of the bride bought the cow or I think option two that we came up with was 7 goats.

So whether he buys one cow or seven goats, if you call him back for the customer satisfaction conversation, whether the the brand promises achieved is a relatively straightforward affair. So was it able to serve the crowd or not? Yeah. So that's the conversation basically that one would be having. So in this case, it's a lot easier to figure out and if you're an architect, because I think we also came up with an architect example, then part of the promise being met conversation would be whether the building was able to be erected within the budgetary scope that you guys planned for.

So do people love the design that is the happiness part of it And then it was it able to be built within cost. You know those will be some of the elements that will be the brand, will be the part of the brand promise whether that was met. So as you can see this part of it is kind of easy but it is something that we can figure out quite easily by having conversations with people having frank conversations. When I say frank I mean open converse honest conversations then open-ended conversations and other focused conversations and question LED conversations.

Now again for those of you who this been listening for a while, you know what this means if this is your first time listening to the show. Basically when I say Frank, I mean honest. When I say open-ended, I mean the conversation doesn't have. I mean you have a fair idea of what the agenda is, but you're keeping it nice and loose so that the conversation can flow to the left or flow to the right depending on where the customer or potential client is heading and the kind of things that you need to learn.

Now when I say the conversation has to be other focused, what I mean is that you should be focusing more on the other person, their own opinion, their own feedback, their own thoughts, their own opinions. And because of that it has to be question LED. You can come in making statements, you have to come in and start asking the person questions and the typical questions that I advocate that are the easiest to remember at this stage are the West questions who, what, when, why,

how, OK how is not AW question but you you get the point. Now, I'm going to refer to something that I've mentioned in the previous podcasts. That's the hierarchy of communications. And I'm going to bring it up again because we're talking about having conversations with people. We're talking about having Frank open-ended, other focused and question LED communications. So how should we handle those communications? And that's where the hierarchy of communications come in.

And OK, well, for those of you who've been listening from the Git, you know that for me, #1 on the hierarchy is face to face. Now, the reason why face to face communications are the best, if you can manage that is because in face to face communications, where I'm over at the client's house, the client is in your office, you guys are the studio, you guys are the field, you guys are the site. You get the whole picture or you guys are sitting across the table.

You have more elements of communication there. You're going to be able to pick up on verbal cues, body language, tone. There's going to be room for nuance and expression, you know? Did she say that smiling? Did she say it with the with a blank face? Did he say with an eyebrow raised? Did he say it as he was biting on his viral? I mean, you never know. You can pick up all kinds of things. You can pick up enthusiasm, lack of enthusiasm, disinterest,

anger. Yes, you can pick up anger, especially anger of the passive aggressive sort where somebody might be saying the right things, but you can see that they're using passive aggressive language, sorry, body language. And so maybe there's something that they haven't said. So that's why face to face is the best, because you're going to be able to get the fullest range of communications possible. Now the second is over the phone.

This is the second most commutative because body language is lost. You can't see what's going on, but you can pick up on tone and you can pick up on some elements of nuance. It's hard to describe which actually can hear a smile over the phone. And sometimes you can hear when somebody's pissed off over the phone even though you're not looking at them. So this is the reason why our phone is best. Now video, I guess some people would say video should be better because for video betting,

you're getting both the visual and you're getting both the auditory, the sound, the auditory cues. Well, for now it's not there yet because not everybody is comfortable on video, because some people show up on video and get kind of stilted when they're self-conscious. But if you get on video, at least you'll be able to tell the difference between somebody saying it was OK when they mean everything was 100% and when they say it was okay.

But what they mean is the experience was bearable, It was possible, it was tolerable, it was just there, it was meh, you know. So you'll be able to tell that difference over on video then SMS or WhatsApp. That is also good because if, well these days anyway, traditions might change later on. But right now if you're sending somebody an SMS or a WhatsApp, if you're in somebody's inbox, then you guys have achieved a certain level of personal rapport.

And then of course there's emojis and gifts and things like that that allow for a wider range of expression. Also, I just said GIF, I'm not sure if it's GIFs or GIFs, I'm not sure how they are pronounced. Then at the very bottom is e-mail. For me, e-mail is at the bottom because it is the least personal. It is more formal, at least in this part of the world. In Nigeria, e-mail is more formal, It's official, so it leaves very little room for nuance and tone.

Now, why bother about this whole thing of the communications hierarchy? We have to bother because we're trying to figure out what people really mean when they say things like it was OK or I was happy or you did good. You're trying to figure out what do they really mean and the extent to which they feel approbation or so. Is it approbation? I'll be this approbation. I can't remember. But you get the whole point when they try to say it was good or when they try to say it was bad.

You're not just trying to figure out is this a pleasant experience or not, but how pleasant was the experience or how nasty was the experience. That's what it is that we're trying to find out. And it is going to be different depending on whether the conversation was had face to face or if it was done over the e-mail. So ideally face to face, but it doesn't always work. So you try and it's not. It doesn't always work for you to be face to face with all your clients, but well anyway you get the gist.

If you're doing it e-mail every single time. I think you can do better than that. At least try and make it an SMS, WhatsApp conversation. Much more personal where people feel relaxed and they can say stuff or get on the phone if you can't meet face to face. But anyway, you get the gist. So yeah, so put yourself in the best context possible to try and figure out what people mean. That is what this whole thing about the communications hierarchy is about.

Put yourself in the best context possible. Now the reason why all of this is important? Customer success, Customer satisfaction. Did you achieve the brand promise and all of this? It is important because, number one, it helps for product or service development. It helps us to refine our product, refine our service back to the wedding photographer example for instance. These conversations will help you refine and improve your photography style.

It might also help you improve Okay. While I said Okay, well, that's product development, how good your product is. Then it can help you refine or help you improve service development as well. How do you interact with people? How do you handle conversations? What's the business process like? So that's the reason why all this feedback is important. Then all this also helps you to identify your ICP. That's your ideal customer profile, your ideal customer avatar.

The people that you work best with, your most satisfied customers, people that should be spending the most time with. Yeah, it helps you to refine that because from all these conversations you might start getting a picture in your head that as an architect, when I'm working with people aged 60 and older from the southern part of the country and who are high net worth individuals, it's a pleasant experience or it's a bad experience.

But then if I'm working with younger people, younger millennials, between the age of 30 to 40 or whatever, I mean, yeah, I trust you guys get the point from having these conversations. You start seeing patterns arise. And when I'm talking with this kind of people, this is what I'm hearing. When I'm talking with those kinds of people, that is what I'm hearing. So perhaps I should be chasing category of people. I should be chasing people in groups, BCD instead of groups of people in EF and G Now how do all these skills?

Sorry. One moment. OK. Yeah. Notification was coming in. I had to mute that. OK. So how do all these skills help with your career development, these kinds of skills trying to figure out if people are happy or not. Are people satisfied? Were you guys on point where you're on goal? It's important because at the office you need to figure out which initiatives were successful or which initiatives were on target. It's the same with the church activities.

The church department has a program. They're working on this, they're working on that. And you need to figure out what was successful, what was on point, what was in near miss, what could you have done better? It's the same with the village community activities. You know when you travel home from the village in December and the same when you guys have the political caucus meetings, you're trying to be able to figure out if the stakeholders in the office or the stakeholders in the village or the church or in the political caucus, you're trying to figure out was everybody happy?

They're trying to figure out, did we deliver on the promise of the meeting, the promise of the program, the promise of the event, the promise of the program, of the project. So how are we going to be able to figure it out? We're going to do so using all the principles that we've spoken about so far. First off, we have to talk to all the stakeholders involved. The the conversations have, to be frank, they have to be open-ended.

They have to follow people where wherever they're willing to say to talk. Because you might think that this aspect of the program or that aspect of the agenda was not a problem. But if the person that you're talking to thinks that it was a problem, then follow the conversation in an open and frank manner and try and see which way the conversation leads. So open-ended conversations focused on them, the person that you're talking to and then it has to be question LED.

Also beer in, Bear in mind the communications hierarchy and principles that we have discussed. So in fact, if you're talking to the political caucus members, I would say that you should do everything possible to make sure the meeting is face to face. And that is why politicians always meet face to face, even if it's in the late hours of the night. Because face to face is best. You're there, there's no bullshitting. You're able to figure out what is this person saying, where does this person stand now?

How is this going to help in your career and your personal personal development and career development? It's going to help because it will help you to become a person of influence and it will help you build a better reputation. And of course you're demonstrating, demonstrating your credibility and your competence so that when you're ready to advance your career or to advance your atmosphere of influence, you should be able to do so relatively easy or easier than if you are not to do anything at all.

If you're just remain an ordinary member of the house who does nothing, who just attends the meetings and sits down and eats the small chops and takes the Fanta and then stands up and then leaves. So that's all for today. I wanted to make sure that we come in under 15 minutes, so remember to connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. If you are reaching me from outside Nigeria, also connect with me on LinkedIn.

My name is Tavish IMA Ayede. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name and the e-mail address from the link where you're currently listening to this episode. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.