Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert and the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession.
Shep works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of Moments of Magic®, The Loyal Customer, The Cult of the Customer, The Amazement Revolution and Amaze Every Customer Every Time. He is also the creator of The Customer Focus™, a customer service training program which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset. (Now available as an online/web-based training program!)
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Show Notes:
- Shep’s first presentation was at the age of 12.
- His parents encouraged him to write a thank you letter.
- They also told him to call in a week to see what they liked about the show.
- Started trading out tricks that nobody liked for better ones (process improvement).
- Started to ask for the names of the parents in the back of the room and starting growing from that.
- Went to work for an oil company full-time.
- Eventually became a regional manager but lost his job a few months later when the company was sold.
- In 1983 he saw Zig Ziglar and Tom Hawkins which made him think he could become a speaker as well.
- He then sat down and wrote out his 10-year goals.
- “Success isn’t going to happen by accident.”
- He read an article in the early 1980s talking about how people form impressions of your business each time they come in contact with your business.
- There are moments that take place in your business or life:
- Good experiences are Moments of Magic
- Bad experiences are Moments of Misery
- Average experiences are Moments of Mediocrity
- Everyone compares their experience to companies that they have worked with in the past. (Typically making mediocrity seem like misery)
- Jan Carlzon: “If you are not actually delivering a service to your outside customer you are probably supporting someone that does, so you need to manage the experiences of that person so that they can then take care of the outside customer.”
- “What is happening on the inside is being felt on the outside of the company.”
- “The beatings won’t stop until your morale gets better.” T-shirt quote.
- “The best companies to do business with are the best companies to work for!”
- Start on the inside with culture.
- Have a journey map that follows the customers from their first thought to the end of the first interaction. Then ask what you can do to make it better.
- Each person will create an impression on the customer.
- His best customer service experience was with a taxi cab driver that made him feel like he was in a limousine.
Shep Hyken’s Recharge Round
- Share with us how you believe your mindset affects your life. Mindset is: “Bad days only last 24 hours.”
- What do you do daily to bring Energy into your life? Work out 5 days a week almost always first thing in the morning. Goal is to be playing golf on 100th birthday
- Share the number one connection that has made the biggest impact on your life. Wife (More than just a spouse, grown together, feed off of each other)
- What advice has Influenced you the most in your life? “Spend 40 hours a week at getting business and will you’ll get business.” Bud Dietrich
- Recommend a book and share why you love it. The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage
, The Experience Economy, Updated Edition
, and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition
- Define in one sentence or less, what legacy you want to leave on the world. “I want to be intentionally significant to others in the form of helping others achieve what they want, and I want to see my kids smile along the way”
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Piece of guidance
Customer service is not a department it is a philosophy to be embraced by everyone