Trending
Sometimes we teach because we have something to share and other times we teach because we have something to learn. This is one of those cases where I am exploring an issue for myself as much as I am addressing it for you.
How do we balance all the demands necessary to serve the needs of our customers?
For me, this challenge manifests in finding the time to keep a regular dialogue going through blogs. You, the reader of this blog, represent a part of my service audience, as do my consulting clients, my speaking event customers, my team members, my book readers, and my publisher. As I have been locked down on deadline writing my upcoming book about the amazing customer experience transformation taking place at Mercedes-Benz USA, I have had little bandwidth to regularly deliver blogs. I have considered having someone else write blogs for me but that always seems like a less than authentic solution. Of course, the absence of blogs isn’t necessarily a viable alternative.
I imagine you have similar challenges. How do you triage which customers get which services, given that there are always limits to the viable resources you can bring to your experience delivery? Is it better to compromise product quality or authenticity in order to bring some product to market or do you step back from product presentation if it isn’t fully resonant with your brand?
If there is a lesson to learn and teach in this writing, it has to be the massive pressure we all face to execute flawlessly in an omni-channel world. We often get pulled into the belief that we HAVE TO BE on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, have live chat, deliver engaging telephone support, master face-to-face service excellence, be thin, read the classics, know what’s trending…. You get the point…
In my case, I have opted to write blogs when I can (recently, about once a month) until my new book deadline passes in May. I also will wait on reading the classics and will give myself a break on knowing what’s trending. I once co-authored an article titled “The Risk of Excellence” in which my colleagues and I offered a core theme which suggested that in order to be excellent you have to say no to things that will make you mediocre.
Saying NO to things that will make you mediocre — hmm, that’s a lesson I may not be qualified to teach but it is one I know is worthy of learning. What are your thoughts?