Customer service is more than answering customers’ questions and complaints.
A community of users is more than setting up a forum where they can communicate with each other.
Customer focus is more than interviewing your customers on a regular basis.
Customer experience is more than asking customers how likely they are to recommend your brand.
And yet, that’s where most companies stop.
Sometimes you listen because you want to know. Sometimes you listen because you care.
It might seem like a minor distinction, but the questions, the attitude, the subjects are very different whether it’s one form of listening or the other.
When you listen because you want to know, your questions are direct and closed. You look for easy answers, answers you can process and understand instantly. It’s usually about trivial topics, and the act of listening is in fact a way to reassure yourself that everything is as it should be.
When you listen because you care, your questions are wide and open. You are not even looking for answers. If they come, they will probably impact the person giving them much more than they impact you. It’s usually about deep change, and the act of listening is a way to unlock new potential.
When everything is important, nothing really is.
Because people have a limited amount of resources to dedicate to you and your agenda. And so, if you aim at keeping their attention high at all times, with one request after the other, all in the same tone, with the same gravitas, delivered with the same sense of urgency, you will eventually exhaust them.
Choose what is important carefully and dedicate to it most of your (and others) efforts.
To promote a new grocery delivery service, you can talk about how fast it is, how easy to use it is, how convenient it is.
Or you can build a community around unique recipes, with ready-made ingredient packages available for purchase, a weekly menu-planner that takes allergies, calories, habits, and personal preferences into consideration, and some way for the users to contribute (pictures, comments, own recipes, etc.).
Of course, if you can leverage both, that’s fantastic.
But things like fast, easy, and convenient are easy to copy.
When a platform welcomes hatred, harassment, violence, disrespect.
Why should you spend time on it?
Why should your kids spend time on it?
How can we possibly glorify it?
What makes people invest money on it?
The point, there’s a choice to make. And we seem to be consistently not capable of making the right one.
You've got this 