The 4 Things I Learned about Customer Service from an Awful Day at Knott’s Berry Farm

Over the Holidays, my family and I decided to go to Knott’s Berry Farm in Orange County, CA. The kids were on vacation, it was a free day between Xmas and New Years, and it seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately, apparently nearly everyone else in Southern California had the same thought. It was late morning when we arrived, and it was packed. Unlike some other theme parks, Knott’s didn’t really seem to have a great handle on what to do with lots of people that day. Unfortunately it showed, and showed badly.As this what I do for a living now, I found myself really paying attention to what was wrong with the experience, both when I was there and afterwards. And, I realized it wasn’t what I initially thought it was. Here were the 4 Things I learned about Customer Service from Having an Awful Day at Knott’s Berry Farm. 1. If you can, have a plan for when things “GO BIG”.Every business is usually working a fine line of having enough work versus having too much. Unfortunately, you can’t always predict what your capacity will be. Sometimes things “Go Big”. Sometimes they “GO REALLY BIG”.First off, it was obvious that Knotts was working beyond its capacity. The waits for lines were very long and the personnel seemed over-burdened and short-staffed. The food kiosks weren’t stocked appropriately, or didn’t have a way of restocking during the open hours. They may have been able to move people through different rides and experiences faster or with less hassle. Certain theme parks have this down to a science. True, there are times when one feels like a lab rat moving through a pre-programmed maze, but the downsides are slight in comparison to crazy lines, emptied kiosks and surly, harassed employees. 2. If that isn’t realistic, make sure you communicate as best you can.Often, you aren’t able to predict how things will “GO BIG”, or it isn’t realistic to spend resources on that possibility. Most companies can’t pay for additional equipment or personnel on the possibility of more work. You’ve got to do the best with what you have. And, that means you need to communicate to your clients and be as honest as you can as to what is going on.Soon after we arrived, my daughter and I got in line for a roller-coaster. The line didn’t appear that long, and I figured it would be a good way to start our day at the park. However, the wait was terrible. About midway through our wait in line (about 45min), I realized that there was only one train on the roller-coaster track, which only had four cars, holding four people each. However, the first car was reserved for VIP ticket holders who got to skip the line, which made it only 12 per run. As we waited, I calculated it took 4min per run. So, in reality, the maximum number of people they could move through the ride was 150 people per hour. I realized the line we had entered had been way over 200 people. Why hadn’t anyone said anything? If I had known that it was going to take ove an hour for a ride for our first roller coaster ride (it ended up taking 1hr45min), I wouldn’t have bothered.  But, there were no signs, no indication of the wait, and no one who let us know what was going on. We spent nearly two hours waiting, assuming that somehow things would speed up. Not so much. 3. Remember what you are trying to accomplish.Remember that your clients are your guests, and are most often, paying you money for your services. When we got to the front of the line and were in our final moments before getting on the roller-coaster, the attendants had the same look as your average TSA employee: bored, grumpy and annoyed. It wasn’t a great thing to see when you have been waiting for over an hour, and probably exacerbated the feeling of frustration on all sides. Without sounding preachy, the attendants were there for safety purposes but also to make people feel happy for coming, or at less unhappy about having to wait so long. Instead, they made it clear that though they would do their best to make sure we didn’t die on the roller-coaster, they would probably prefer that we all go home. 4. Finally, if you are going to make people wait, it better be good. I have to admit that waiting nearly 1hr45min for a 90sec ride had the odds stacked against it. However, when we finally got on the roller coaster, and we got tossed sideways while facing backwards and then back again, it was a blast! It really was fun, a lot of fun, and my daughter was jumping up and down with joy when we finished. I can’t say I would wait that long again, but it was worth it to see the look on her face. – Scott (follow me here on Twitter)

Customer Service and the Curse of Fundamental Attribution Error

The Customer Service department of most organizations is not a happy place. People don’t contact Customer Service personnel because they want to chat for fun (unless you’re Zappos). They call because there is a problem, or a question, or a question about a problem.However, the Customer Service department is often a highly critical area of interaction with existing clients and often the Achilles’ Heal of most organizations. Most organizations perceive Customer Service as an afterthought, and without knowing it, can do enormous damage to their brand by not considering how Support personnel treat customers.All people have a tendency to make snap judgments about why other people act. When we think about other people’s behavior, we think in terms of dispositional behavior  or situational behavior. With dispositional behavior we attribute their actions to their disposition or personality, either good or bad. We often attribute someone as being lazy, unintelligent or foolish without really knowing very much about them.With situational behavior, we usually attribute a person’s behavior to the circumstances in which they are interacting.Example:

Jane comes in late for work. You don’t have any clues as to why, but that doesn’t mean that your brain isn’t going to provide some form of explanation:

Dispositional Behavior: She’s often late for work, and is obviously lazy and lacks motivation to get here on time.

Situational Behavior: Jane is late, but must have a really tough commute

Neither is necessarily correct, but both will color affect how you interact with Jane. Fundamental Attribution Error is the theory that other people looking at a certain person tend to explain their behavior in terms of dispositional factors.A call comes in to your office requesting help on a new product. The support person who picks up the call probably is thinking a couple things:

• this person probably didn’t read the instructions.
• this person probably didn’t check out the cool instruction video I threw up on YouTube.
• this person probably hasn’t checked the website were we talk about most major issues
• this person probably isn’t that smart because they are only calling because they are lazy
• this person probably will waste my time with some basic error that will make me late for my lunch break.

Before the client has even gotten on the phone, the Support person has already made a (largely negative) judgment about the person on the other line. It’s not to say that any of those ideas are incorrect, but do you think the tone and interaction of the Support person will be positive and open?It is simplistic to say that people should avoid dispositional judgments. Dispositional judgments are largely hardwired into our thinking. However, if one is aware of these factors and understand that these thoughts are normal, they can be made aware of their snap judgments and keep an open mind for just a bit longer. Sometimes, that is all that is needed from making your Support Department from a place of poor morale and misery, to a place that convinces your customers that they were smart to work with you in the first place. 

How to Win the Biggest Fans for your Business

First off, let me set the stage a little bit…SDM Advisory Group is a consulting company. We provide management consulting and project management services for multiple companies, usually within the technology or access control industry. What we provide is fairly diverse, depending on the need of the client, but all of it requires a tremendous day-to-day interaction with our clients.I would love to say that we’re golden in working with our clients, but the reality is that often we’re not. It’s hard to stay on top of every client in the manner and the way that we need to. Sometimes we push to hard  and upset people. Sometimes we give too much leeway and the client begins to lose momentum on the project. Sometimes there are misunderstandings, mistakes or omissions. We try are best not to let them happen, but it happens more often than I would like. But, we’re always trying to improve with each client.We have some advantages since we are a boutique firm. We’re not trying to organize fifty projects at a time. We usually have 10 or 20 projects spread between five to ten clients, which means that we can make sure that we are maintaining our relationships and providing the value our clients need. We try hard to be an advocate and a fan of our client’s business, since we know they are fans of ours.When we talk about a fan of business, we’re not talking about your mother or your best friends that support you, know matter what. We’re talking about your clients work with you everyday. Your clients are your biggest fans, since they’re the ones that have stepped up to work with you or buy your products. They are also the one group of people who are mostly likely to work with you or buy your product again.Your current and former clients are your best potential asset when trying to expand your business. Work hard to develop the relationships that already surround you and develop the trust of your clients.