Complaints are a good opportunity to develop a relationship with your customers, writes Kevin Kelly

When the door opens, your eyes are drawn to a huge cappuccino machine on the reception counter. Simultaneously the smell of freshly baked buns drowns your senses. One of the friendly team leads you to the waiting room, more specifically to your own personalised waiting room. As you relax in the comfy sofas you are invited to enjoy a cuppa. If you would like to read, you can choose from the selection of recent magazines on the coffee table.

After a while the sense of calm is broken by a knock on the door. Who is it? Where are you? What if I told you that this is one of the most highly paid professionals in his niche? Yes you would be attending Paddi Lund, one of the most successful dentists in Australia. Lund’s reception area is a fantastic example of exceptional execution of an ordinary idea.

In 2006, a team at Columbia University did research on breakthrough companies in the US over the previous decade. They found that 88% of the companies in the US were the result of exceptional execution of an ordinary idea. In essence, waiting for the satori (the awakening) or the Eureka moment isn’t to be advised. Instead all companies should be focused on how they can ‘Xceptionalise’ their ordinary ideas.

When you Xceptionalise, you exceed people’s expectations, bringing them further along the spectrum from customer to friend. The starting point is a forensic review of your processes in the context of interactions between the customer, the internal customer and the organisation. Standards should be set and documented for each interaction with Xceptional standards being the goal.

For example, your aim is to answer the phone in three rings. The challenge must be to exceed these standards on an ongoing basis. Where the standards aren’t met, the organisation should acknowledge and vow to do better. Thus in the context of the phone answering example, an Xceptional receptionist would apologise for the delay in answering, then deal with the call.

Complaints are a fantastic opportunity to develop a relationship with your client. Standards should be put in place to empower front line staff to own and solve any complaint at source. Indeed companies should not just focus on solving complaints; equal focus should be spent on soliciting them. Most people expect trouble when they complain so when someone solves the problem their expectations are exceeded. The majority of dissatisfied clients leave without complaining, so get them complaining or watch them leave!

Standard setting should have input from each employee, from the receptionist to the managing director. In the context of creating the desired culture, recruitment strategy is critical. An Xceptional example of how to execute this strategy is provided by Zappos, the online shoe retailer recently taken over by Amazon. After a set induction period, the new employee is ‘invited to leave’ with a $2,000 cheque plus payment for time spent in training, if they believe the company culture isn’t a fit for them.

The standards are transmitted top down only after a bottom up consultation. The Xceptional business is everybody’s business and everybody is required to sell, excel and innovate in the current challenging times.
(Published in the Business Plus Magazine.)