The Key Ingredients of Good Customer Service
Ask Bruce Skillings about the magic formula for building good client relationships and he'll tell you there isn't one. But he does have a recipe for success.
You start with treating your clients like you would want to be treated. Add in equal parts trust and value, and mix with a genuine interest for your clients on a personal level. Sprinkle with a desire to go that extra mile and you're pretty much there.
Sometimes it takes picking up the phone or, in Bruce's case, donning an apron, pointing out the sites, and playing doctor.
We met up with Bruce Skillings, president, recruitment communications, Bernard Hodes Group, at his office in Palo Alto, to talk about Customer Service 101.
Q. Let's start by talking about the rock-solid basics of great customer service. What are the basic things people have to do?
A. It's simple. Treat people like you want to be treated. It's ironic. You have all these books out there about great customer service and great customer service organizations, and it all comes down to people caring about what they do and having that relationship with the customer that goes beyond a transaction. Anybody can go to an ATM and plug in their number and get money from a bank, but there's a whole lot of people who still want to talk to their teller. I think people get caught up, thinking that a “thing” is going to replace the trust between two people.
Q. Like e-mail.
A. Like e-mail, like a new product, like a new acronym. And it comes down to a very simple thing: Unless I have a relationship with the person I'm doing business with, I can't replace that relationship with a new product or a new technology.
Q. It sounds like Stephen Covey's “seek first to understand and then to be understood.”
A. No. It's Jerry Garcia's comment. "I don't want to be known as the best of the best". I want to be known as the only people who do what we do. Unless you have a relationship, our service can be distilled down to a commodity and commodities can be compared, like, I can buy that pencil for a penny less over there. But if I have a relationship, there's a reason for me to do business with somebody. It comes down to trust, it comes down to understanding the client, it comes down to knowing what the client's needs are. It comes down to asking simple questions like, "How are you? How can we help you?" and, most importantly, saying "thank you."
Q. Now, what's the responsibility of the client in that relationship?
A. It's the same thing. They can't look at us as a commodity. They can't look at us as the ATM machine where they go in and plug in a number and out spits something at the other end. They need to look at us as though we're going to add value to their process, to the things they're going to do, because that's what customer service is. It's all the basic common-sense things. There's no big formula out there. Give the customer what he needs, don't give him what he doesn't need, and always add value to it.
Q. But, wouldn't you say they have to tell us what they need rather than what they want, that if they send us an e-mail and say this is what we want, it doesn't allow us to complete that relationship?
A. No, I think it does. Too often we react to “this is what they want,” and it's too easy not to pick up the phone and say, “I saw this request. Let me understand it better so I can give you the best solution. Is this really what you're trying to do? Let me understand.”
Our success as a company has been one of long-term client relationships. It's been one of being able to build that trust with the client for the long term. We've got to push that interpersonal connection with the client.
Q. How can clients measure good customer service?
A. How much vendor partners know about their clients, not only from a corporate standpoint--what do they know about the company, what do they know about what the company's doing--but also what do they know about the clients on a personal level.
Q. So, it's how much you really know about the client?
A. Absolutely. Tell me about this person. What does this person look like? I can tell you that the folks who are excellent customer service people have met their clients. They know about their clients, and they know about their clients' businesses. They take every opportunity, every touch point, to enhance that relationship. And it's as simple as sometimes saying, “Thank you for the business.” And as complex as, “Let's dig into this deeper for you because it doesn't quite make sense to me. Can you help me understand it?” People are willing to talk to one another. I think we just get caught up in the speed at which we try to get business done today.
At Hodes, we've been successful in holding onto business by pushing the customer service envelope. We need to always be able to create relationships that go beyond the client/agency, because that recruiter might leave and the relationship continues again at the next company.
It's not rocket science. Nobody needs to write a book about it. There are no big formulas. To me, the simplest thing is when a client can call you up and say, “You know, I need help, but I don't know if you can help me.” But, they're still calling you, and it's our responsibility to say, “Yeah, I can help you,” or, “No, I can't, but let me see what I can help find for you.”
Q. Can you give me an example?
A. I can remember years ago I had a client call me up. He said, “We've got this big celebration and I need a cake for 2,500 people.” And I said, “Well, I can't bake it for you, but here's a bakery you could just go try, because I've always found them really good.” And we created that relationship between him and this little Portuguese bakery in Santa Clara. So, it goes to that kind of understanding.
Q. That's a lot of cake. Anything else?
Another situation that comes to mind was with this small, single-unit hospital in Fresno, California, that was in dire need of nurses. We arranged a U.K. recruiting trip where we had our folks in the U.K. produce all of our ads that we sent over to them. They placed them in the appropriate publications and did some pre-screening. So, we got a short list of people and we set up interviews for about 60 nurses over a three-day period.
Well, I had a reason to go to London at the same time the client was going. I figured, okay, here's a client that we're plucking out of the central valley of California and dropping her in London. How can we help her?
So I said, “I'll go and I'll make sure the hotel is right for her, that the little things are done,” from the standpoint that I was over there anyway.
So, she arrives on the Sunday and says, “Well, I want to see London.” And I said, “Well, let's walk around and I'll show you what I know of London.” We're doing that and we're down at the Tower of London and we're getting ready to go back to the hotel where she's going to do this interviewing.
Well, she fell off the curb and gets hit by a taxi cab, goes flying through the air, and I'm going, “Oh God, I've killed my client.”
Q. Did you?
A. Not exactly. So, I rush over there and, remember, this is a nurse, and I tell her, “I'm going to take you to the hospital,” and she goes, “No. I'm not going to any hospital in the U.K.” So, I put her in a cab, get her back to the hotel. Now, she's just literally bruised from the tip of her toes to the top of her head on one side where this cab hit her, and I'm thinking “I guess she knew she was not hurt that bad.” So, what happens?
Q. You do the interviews.
A. Exactly. I got her set up in her room. She could barely move, she was that stiff, and for the next three days, I did all the primary screening for her and got people up to talk to her on the final level. They hired 43 nurses from that event. We created this relationship, and it was nothing more than anybody else would have done in the same circumstance. It's just being open to take that next step.
Q. Well, that raises a question. Do we need to hire people who have the kind of instinct to respond that way?
A. I think it's an inbred skill. It's something you learn as a person, and it's also something you can enhance through training, which we do here at Hodes. I mean, it's common sense, it's common concern, it's a willingness to go that little extra step, and that's something that you learn as you're growing up. And, if you have a little bit of it, we can enhance it through training. It's interest. It's curiosity. It's not being satisfied. I know that what I did today is the best I could possibly do at that moment, but I know I could have done better. So, it's that kind of thing.
Q. Well, what are the limits? Where do you look to say “that's as far as I should try?”
A. I don't think there are any limits on trying. I think there are limits on the reality. You have to understand that this isn't a club, it's a business. We have to always keep in mind those are the parameters in which these relationships work. You're not going to do something that is solely helpful to the business and not helpful to the client, and you're not going to do something that's solely helpful to the client and not helpful to the organization. It's got to be win-win on both sides. There's got to be value for the client and there's got to be value for the agency.
Q. So, to that point, what does 2004 look like? What will be the challenges for a company like Hodes when clients don't need thousands of applicants because they already have them?
A. Well, to me, it's never been about applicants or number of hires. It's about the clients' issues. And those issues, whether they're large or small, always have an opportunity for us to bring something to the party. It's not the client who's going to hire a thousand people. It's the client who needs to hire five people. How can we help? But, it's also getting them to ask us about the cake rather than just about the ads.
Q. So, true success is getting them to ask about “the cake”?
A. It's “How do I do this?” or “Do you know anybody who can do this?” It's that personal referrals side. “I know you guys don't do this, but can you help me?”
That's the trust.
Q. I've heard that you occasionally put on an apron and fire up the stove when a client says, “Can you help me?” So, tell us how some of that comes about.
A. Well, back to this hospital in central California. When we pitched this business, we did a pitch and we did our thing, and here's what we want and here's what we can do, all the trappings of going after a new piece of business. And, at the end of the presentation, I asked if anyone had any questions or concerns.
And, at the back of the room this hand gets raised, and it happens to be this PG of nursing, and she looks at me and says, “I have one question. Aren't you a cook?” And I go, “Well, what do you mean?” She looked at me and said, “Weren't you serving at Nick Papalea's son's wedding?”
Now, the long and the short of this is simple. For years, my uncles were in the restaurant business, and I worked there during the summer growing up as a kid. My great-uncle, Rico Bruce, was friends with everybody in Fresno County. One of his friends was a guy named Nick Papalea.
Nick Papalea was the sheriff of Fresno County and his son was getting married. My Uncle Rico called me up one day and said, “Bruce, come and help me. Nick's asking me to cook for the wedding.” So, I went down there and I helped my Uncle Rico cook for 500 people. After we'd cooked, we helped serve it. And this lady happened to be invited to Nick Papalea's son's wedding. So, yes, I do cook.
The long and short of that is that I have a lot of experience. For years here in Palo Alto, we used to do this thing called Strictly HR, where we'd bring in guests to speak at lunch to clients and non-clients about issues concerning the HR community. This was going on for a couple of years, and, this one December, we had one of these scheduled and the speaker backed out at the last minute, and we've got like 40 people coming to this luncheon thing. So, it was like what do we do?
I've cooked many a time for the office. So, I said, “Okay, here's what we'll do. These 40 people come in, and what I'll do is I'll get up and show them how to make five different pastas in 40 minutes.” And so they came in and I did five different pasta dishes for them at our old facility, which had a full kitchen, in 40 minutes, and then we gave out the recipes.
Well, all of a sudden, that started trickling around the HR community. In Silicon Valley, every December for like five or six years, it was the big event. It got as high as 75 people, and I'd have to do five different dishes than the year before.
So, it's nothing more than being real with your clients.
Q. You know, what's funny is, I can't imagine how you were able to tie that back to an event that was called Strictly HR.
A. Well, again, making lemonade out of lemons. We didn't have a speaker, we couldn't find one to fill in, so we just said, “Let's just kind of have some fun with it.”
And I guess that's the other side of customer service. It's got to be fun. If you fear your clients, you're not providing customer service. If you can have fun with your client, if you can work hard with your client, all the better. I mean, our country is getting to a point where the most important jobs are going to be what I call where bellies rub, where people touch one another. And we have to remember that we've got to be able to touch people.
What our clients are asking us to help them do is really to touch somebody, and not only on an intellectual level, but also on an emotional level, to make that person do something that is a very difficult thing, and that is change jobs. It's ranked probably somewhere behind buying a house and getting married. And we can't forget that. There's a big emotional part of our business, and touching the client and helping the client touch their audience is incredibly important. We cannot afford, as an organization or as an industry, to allow technology to be the excuse not to pick up the phone.
I know I'm impressed when I've had a business relationship with somebody who occasionally just picks up the phone and says, “Hi. Thought I'd give you a call to see what's going on. Anything I can help you with?” Or “Hi. Just thought I'd give you a call and tell you thanks for your business. Really appreciate it.” And it goes beyond letters from the president, the formal client review process, and the assessment stuff. It's that simple human characteristic of “I'm concerned, I have a relationship with you. How are you doing?”
Q. I think it says a lot that you started in the restaurant business, because every great restaurant will tell you, “If you don't see it on the menu, just ask.”
A. That's right. I think part of what I've tried to do over the last couple of years is to be in front of as many of our folks as I can. It's something I think is important. I challenge everybody to say, “Have I done that one thing today for that client that'll make a difference in their lives, or a difference in their business day, or a difference in their business week or whatever?”
Q. So, that should be on the back of the door of the office when you're putting on your coat?
A. It's got to be in the forefront of your brain. It's not a plaque, it's not a slogan. It's a way you live your life. It's as simple as saying, “Hi. How are you?” and you've really got to mean it. It has to come from the heart, not some script. There's no training that replaces the fundamental desire to do that, because, if you have to train people to do it, it's not natural. And, when it's not natural, it comes across as being fake. All those processes help that fundamental understanding of being real and liking what you're doing, and that's it.
Bruce Skillings is president, recruitment communications, at Bernard Hodes Group. During his tenure with the Company, Mr. Skillings has developed successful human resources communications campaigns for dozens of business-to-business and consumer product accounts, including Amazon.com, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, and Visa, and led the team that developed CareerMosaic®, the Web's first employment site.
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