In my last couple of posts, I’ve discussed strategies for making sure your customers:

• Feel valued and treated respectfully
• Believe their relationship with you is a quid pro quo situation
• Believe they benefit from being in connection with you

Today, I’m going to be talking about the third pillar of building a great customer experience: your customers feel it is easy to do business with you.

Now, weirdly, that can be the toughest one to pull off. Why? Because people don’t try to design their business to be tough to work with, right? And yet, predictably, either the product(s) make no sense, the process(es) they are part of make no sense or (most likely) both.

Whose Process Is This Anyway

My husband and I have been on holidays. We were pretty zonked by the time we got to our destination and decided to eat in the hotel restaurant that night. And as we were getting close to the hostess station, there’s all of these people and it’s like a bunch of them are kind of in line off to the side for it. We quickly found out why: When we offered our name and room number to the hostess, she scribbled our information onto a piece of paper and handed it back to us as we waited in line with others who had done the same. Why? Well, there were empty tables and the restaurant’s system was to make sure everyone entered as a group and got seated in some kind of distribution process. In this way, the hostess wouldn’t have to trot back and forth between each party and the hostess station to seat them. You can probably imagine that this was a pretty yucky experience. It just felt needlessly complicated AND pretty impersonal on top of that. The food was good enough, but for this one reason we didn’t eat at the hotel again. That’s a great example of being process driven and not customer focused.

You can probably conjure a tonne of others: times when you’ve thought, “seriously, THIS is what I have to do to get an answer/a product/a ticket?” How do you make sure that’s not the sentiment you leave your customers with when they engage with your company?

Three ways:

Map and Empower the Customer Journey

Now you can do it whole hog or in the most primitive way possible, but you have to get this work done. If you have time and money to spare, there’s been a heap of stuff written on customer journey mapping; courses you can take, consulting services you can subscribe to etc. On the other end of the spectrum is DIY, throw you and anyone else in your organisation who touches a customer into a room (presales, sales, services, support, renewals, billing) and spend a day mapping out the customer’s experience as they work their way through their journey. Make sure that people are being brutally honest with themselves about the processes they employ and how those may feel from the customer’s perspective. Then repair what’s broken.

Inquire of the Customer How You’re Doing

I’m not referring here to that massive NPS survey you do a few times per year. I mean getting as close to the customer’s experience of the process, more or less at the moments when it happened. (At one company I worked with, we did this following each transaction: the sale, the implementation, the renewal.) Car service departments are good at this; they call to see how the service was. And the worst part is you only speak to them if it was a bad experience, right? Perfect. That’s actually the PREFERRED stuff you want to hear.

Stay Vigilant

Greg Anderson, a CRM specialist based in Perth, puts it well: “It’s so easy to sit in a meeting and define a process that’s great for the business and that really doesn’t work at all for the customer.” How do you think phone companies got so expert at it? Can you just imagine the meetings they had when thinking I know, let’s have the caller give their name, DOB, SSN, favourite ice cream flavour and give that to EVERY SINGLE PERSON they talk to as we shuffle their call around? Not one person in those meetings was being VIGILANT; no one stopped and said “wait a minute, this is going to feel really annoying for the customer.”

How Do You Work This Thing

What if the product or service is so complex that it tends to influence customer experience? Not so long ago, I received a text from my mobile phone service provider telling me that I was near the end of my data allotment for the month and they would charge me for an additional block of it. I thought, “hmmm, I thought I had unlimited data.” So I went onto my plan online. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So, I called. The person I spoke with explained that though my plan did, in fact, contain the words “unlimited data,” it didn’t REALLY MEAN that. Then they attempted to explain the options. Honestly, even after several minutes of this, I wasn’t able to understand the tradeoffs they were offering. I threw in the towel and stuck to my own game plan .

How do you protect your products and services from being “difficult”?

• Keep the mission in mind
• Design around value
• Just say no

What Does Your Company Actually Do

What’s this product or service for? Concentrate on creating really amazing products and services that support it, not on the “edges” of it. One company I worked with does software for the fast creation, delivery and coaching around sales readiness. Like any business, we received loads of customer requests about our products. We were very much looking to judge everything on whether it made our core solution rock so much more than edge functionality.

Put Value at the Centre of Your Design

What do I mean by this? OK, and how will your customer measure the value of that product or service? Think like a winter coat that has a lot going for it, pockets, removable hood, sun resistant material, but it is NOT WARM.

I’ve run professional services functions for years, and definitely seen (and probably been the cause of) service creep because employees felt that the customer just HAD to know more stuff, see more stuff, etc. But every time we were really focused on delivering services around getting the customer to value, it always tightened up our implementation.

Daniel Pink, in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2009), reminds us that “Motivation is driven by autonomy, mastery, and purpose rather than external rewards.” This applies just as much to your customers, they want to master your product quickly and feel a sense of purpose in using it, not wade through unnecessary complexity.

Consider the Weight of Need on Possibility

Or, to put it in my own words, JUST SAY NO.

It’s the failure to do this that leads to things like the one I’ve just described about my phone plan. I think that the service provider was just hoisting themselves on their own petard, being there more out of a desire to lock in some revenue and less out of wanting to have options for me, the consumer.

In my experience, more often than not software vendors do things to meet certain customer requests that result in the feature and functionality or service becoming overly complex. So for example, if you are releasing some changes to the product user interface and will be rolling them out in phases. Your natural impulse would be to push all your customers onto every new release so they’d have access to every shiny new thing as soon it became available. But is this what’s really best for them? Perhaps it would be better to have one impactful change in 6 months than the difficulties of changes every 1 or 2?

My advice: when you’re trying to work out how best to communicate or do something really complicated, try not doing it as an option.

Making It Easier

Making sure your customers want to do business with you sounds easy. But it’s so easy to let your products, services and processes get away from you when trying to serve changing needs. I cannot recommend enough that you encourage a culture where the teams police themselves on this: is this better for us or for the customer? Is this truly value adding or is it someone’s pet concept? Will throwing this in make our answer more complicated under the guise of adding content?

If we ask these types of questions in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or anywhere else across Australia, we will produce products and services that fit our mission and the needs of our customers easily.

The businesses that thrive aren’t the ones with the fanciest features. They’re the ones where customers think, “That was easy,” and come back for more.

Looking to improve your team’s customer service skills? We run tailored customer experience workshops and frontline customer service training sessions across Australia. Whether you’re in Adelaide, Perth, or anywhere in between, we can help your team create experiences that keep customers coming back. Get in touch to discuss how we can help your business.

Sources

Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Riverhead Books.

In the phase of the selection process, it’s important to pay attention to the candidates who have successfully reached the stage. The process should include.

1. Evaluating Education and Experience,

When hiring it’s crucial to consider both work experience and academic achievements. However, their significance may vary depending on the job requirements. Additionally, recruiters should trust their instincts.

2. Reaching Consensus;

It’s essential to have a decision-making approach, within the team. Team members should:

• Gather input from all interviewers.
• Analyze all observations and ratings.
• Value diverse perspectives.
• Reach an agreement, on the candidate to be hired.

3. Maintaining a Record of Non-Candidates.

Organisations should keep a record of applicants who were not selected. This resource can help in filling vacancies and making quicker decisions based on previous evaluations.

4. Verifying Credentials.

When considering roles its recommended to gather at 10 references. For positions having 3 5 references is sufficient.

• Give priority to recommendations.
• Connect with HR representatives or former supervisors for input.
• Prepare a set of questions. Focus on extracting the relevant information, from the references.

5. Submitting a Bid;

The job advertisement should be. Transparent. This involves providing job titles, descriptions, salary details, benefits and perks. The objective is to attract candidates whose skills, knowledge and experience align, with the companys requirements.

In summary the second stage of the selection process is complex. Requires a combination of thinking and intuition when making decisions. If executed properly it ensures that the organisation selects the candidates for achieving success.

Importance of Second Stage of the Selection Procedure

The second phase of the selection process often known as the interview stage, assessment center or additional evaluation holds importance, in recruitment and selection. Here are a few reasons highlighting the significance of this stage.

1. Refining Selection;

After screening there may still be numerous candidates suitable for the position. The second stage aids in narrowing down the pool to those who are best suited for the role optimising time and resources.

2. In depth Assessment;

The initial stage, reliant on CVs or application forms provides a surface level understanding of candidates. The second stage allows for an examination of their skills, capabilities and potential.

3. Cultural Compatibility;

The second stage evaluates how well a candidate aligns, with the company’s values, mission and culture. Hiring individuals who fit well culturally can minimise turnover. Enhance team morale.

4. Verification of Skills;

Tests, simulations or practical assignments can be used in this stage to validate the skills and competencies claimed by candidates. This ensures that the chosen individual can genuinely fulfill the required tasks of the position.

5.Importance of Interpersonal Skills.

During interviews or group assessments employers have the opportunity to evaluate candidates’ soft skills such, as communication, teamwork and problem solving. These qualities can be challenging to assess based on written applications.

6. Positive Candidate Experience.

An organised second stage of the hiring process can greatly enhance the candidate experience, which reflects positively on the company’s brand. Providing a recruitment experience does not make a job offers more appealing to top talents but also helps improve the company’s reputation even among those who are not selected.

7. Enhanced Clarity for Employers.

Engaging with candidates face to face or through platforms gives employers an understanding of who they are considering for roles reducing the chances of making hiring mistakes.

8. Two-way Communication Opportunity.

The second stage is not about assessing candidates; it also provides an opportunity for candidates to evaluate the organisation ask questions and gain insight into their future working environment.

9. Reduced Hiring Risks;

By dedicating time to a selection process, in the stage companies can minimise the risk of costly hiring mistakes that may lead to wasted training resources decreased productivity and potential re hiring needs.

10.Consistency is particularly important,

In organisations, where the second stage of the hiring process ensures that there is an approach across different departments or locations. This consistency helps to achieve reliable outcomes when making hiring decisions.

To summarize while the initial selection stage plays a role, in narrowing down a pool of applicants the second stage is equally critical. It ensures that the chosen candidate not possesses the skills and experience but also aligns well with the company’s values and culture. When properly executed this stage increases the likelihood of establishing an enduring employment relationship.

A job interview is an opportunity to showcase your personality highlight your strengths. Make a positive impression, on potential employers. Having interview skills like maintaining an attitude being improvest communicating effectively and actively listening can greatly influence the hiring decision in your favour. Therefore it’s important to develop these interview abilities to improve your chances of securing your desired job position. In this article we will explain what interview skills are and why they are important. We will also provide ten examples. Explore some top interview techniques.

Interview skills refer to your ability to engage with employers or interviewers and demonstrate why you are the candidate for the job. These skills offer insights, into how you communicate in the workplace solve problems effectively listen actively and maintain improvesty in your work. Together these aspects indicate how well you would fit into their work environment.

During an interview employers not pay attention to your answers. Also observe non verbal cues you display while responding to questions. For instance tapping your foot during a conversation may indicate nervousness. Having a set of skills is essential, in setting yourself from other candidates who have similar qualifications and work experience.

Interviewing skills play a role as they give your employer confidence in your ability to handle job responsibilities and meet daily objectives. Additionally these skills allow employers to assess whether your qualifications, experience and demeanour align with their requirements. For example when hiring for a customer service role employers may prioritise interview skills such as communication and self assurance due to the importance of confident customer interactions.

Out of all the interview skills verbal communication stands out as the vital. It empowers you to effectively communicate information about your education, abilities and professional background to employers. Having communication skills enables you to provide well thought out responses during interviews significantly increasing your chances of securing the position.

During interviews you have an opportunity to showcase your skills that can bring added value to an organisation. Here are some illustrative examples;

Research Efficiently; Demonstrating competence in research can greatly enhance your performance during interviews. When you analyse the job description and customise your resume accordingly it shows that you are prepared. By researching the company you can confidently answer questions, like “Why do you want to work for this company?”. Adequate preparation for interview questions, such as “Tell me about yourself” or “What’re your greatest weaknesses ” demonstrates your commitment and seriousness towards the role. It’s important to tailor your responses to match the job requirements.

Effective verbal communication involves speaking coherently and at a pace. This skill ensures that your message is conveyed comprehensively and confidently. Employers pay attention to verbal cues, including body language, posture, gestures, facial expressions and eye contact. Maintaining eye contact and projecting a demeanour are essential, for interview success.

Effective Time Management; Being punctual reflects your skills and dedication. Arriving at the interview location, in advance and efficiently managing your time during the interview demonstrate your reliability.

Confidence is Key; Projecting your self assurance is vital to build trust in your abilities. Avoid fidgeting and greet with a handshake, maintain eye contact whilst responding confidently to questions.

Listening Matters; Active listening is just as important as answering questions. It shows your engagement and seriousness towards the role. Asking questions based on the interviewers statements demonstrates participation and understanding. It also shows initiative.

Embrace a Positive Attitude; A positive attitude can greatly influence the hiring decisions and help you with a leg in the door. It can work in your favour. Responding optimistically to questions about jobs and using language while presenting your qualifications can have a significant impact on the final choice.

Politeness Matters; Display politeness throughout all interactions during the interview process from the receptionist to HR professionals. It highlights your ability to work harmoniously with others and it sometimes gets back to the interviewers.

Honesty: Honesty is a characteristic that makes you an attractive candidate.  People build relationships with those that they can trust. Providing information on your resume and offering responses during interviews are crucial for building trust with potential employers.

To increase your chances of success during job interviews consider the following five strategies;

1. Make a Positive First Impression; The first impression you make carries weight. Present yourself professionally and confidently right from the beginning.
2. Dress Appropriately; Choose attire that aligns with the companys culture and reflects professionalism.
3. Improve Interview Skills; work on enhancing your interview abilities through practice and seeking feedback. Implement the STAR Technique; The STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method is highly effective, for addressing behavioural and situational interview questions. It allows you to provide concise responses using real life examples.
4. Be Honest and dont lie: Use body language and good communication to build rapport and come across genuinely interested in the role. Your resume may look good, but if you dont smile it wont work.
5. Express Appreciation After the Interview; Sending a thank you note after the interview demonstrates gratitude and professionalism.

By mastering these interviewing skills and techniques you will be able to navigate interviews and increase your chances of securing your desired job role. Learning more about any of the above skills will put you ahead of the rest and ahead of the game. Ask our team how we can provide interview coaching or a 1 on 1 for you to give you the advantage.

David Alssema is a Body Language Expert and Motivational Speaker. As a performer in the personal development industry in Australia he has introduced and created new ways to inspire, motivate and develop individuals.

David Alssema started his training career with companies such as Telstra and Optus Communications, and then developed Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) within workplace training as principal of Paramount Training & Development.

As an author/media consultant on body language and professional development David has influenced workplaces across Australia. He contributes to Media such as The West Australian, ABC Radio, Australian Magazines and other Australia Media Sources.