How to create remarkable experiences with Dan Gingiss 2nd HALF – E60

Released on: 7. February 2022

link to the first half: www.cxgoalkeeper.com/DanGingiss

“Find your slice of cake & a candle and transform them into a chocolate box & a sparkler” @dgingiss on the CX Goalkeeper podcast
Tweet

The CX Goalkeeper had a smart discussion with Dan Gingiss

Dan Helps Companies Make Customer Experience Their Best Sales & Marketing Strategy. He is a Keynote Speaker, an Author and a Podcaster

This is the second episode. The first one was published last week.

In this episode you will learn about:

Dan’s latest book: The Experience Maker: how to create remarkable experiences that your customers can’t wait to share
how the get WISER – 5 key words to create remarkable experience:
the definition of WISER – Witty, Immersive, Shareable, Extraordinary and Responsive
the “Dubrovnik Principle”

… and much more

His book suggestion:
They Ask You Answer; Marcus Sheridan

Dan’s golden nugget:
Become a customer of your own company. If not possible, find a way to shadow a real customer.

Become a customer of your own company. If not possible, find a way to shadow a real customer. @dgingiss on the CX Goalkeeper Podcast
Tweet

How to contact Dan:
https://twitter.com/dgingiss
https://dangingiss.com/

Thank you, Dan!

#customerexperience #leadership #cxgoalkeeper #cxtransformation #podcast

Transcription:

Gregorio Uglioni 0:01
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the CX goalkeeper podcast, your host, Gregorio Uglioni, will have small discussion with experts, thought leaders, and friends on customer experience, transformation, innovation and leadership. I hope you enjoy the next episode.

I think the main topic in your book is the acronym wiser. And before we explain or you explain what why is that I mean, how did you came to the idea to use this acronym?

Dan Gingiss 0:38
Well, I had a lot of examples. So I have a big library of examples. I emptied almost the entire library into the book. But you know what, since I published the book, I’ve got dozens new examples. And when I do a keynote on stage, I can’t share all the examples. So I share my favorite 10 or 12. And I wanted to be able to share a formula with people so that the whole idea of the examples is they’re meant to be inspirational. They’re meant to say, when you see one of these examples, what I want you to say is, what why are we not doing that in our company? We could do that so easily. We don’t it’s not it’s simple. It’s practical, it’s inexpensive. Why are we not doing it? That’s exactly the question I want you to ask. And then I want you to go and, and do it. It’s so wiser became a methodology for doing it. So okay, now I am inspired by this example. And I want to go make some changes. But what should I do? And how should I do it? And wiser is really that methodology to help explain the whys part is to explain how we create the types of experiences that are remarkable. And then our part is to make you wiser than the competition. And that’s about being responsive, and making sure that as customers are reaching out to you, especially if they’re complimenting you, but even if they are complaining or asking questions that you respond to everyone. And I even have some great examples in the book of customers that reached out in social media with complaints. And because the company responded, the customer turned out to be an advocate, they became a new customer. They told their friends that the company was awesome, whatever it was, and they started off a detractor. So the power there is immense. And it isn’t, you can’t do it in every channel. So being responsive is is a big key.

Gregorio Uglioni 2:32
And it totally makes sense. I know a butler. She’s the first one that was allowed to work in in the UK with with a king. And then she said, each complaint is a gift, because you can improve yourself. And with these complaints, you can really go to the next level because at the end from a battler your big, big expectation, and therefore she’s explaining in a really nice way that that’s complaints are gifts. Before we deep dive, could you please explain the acronym Wiser? What does it what does it exactly mean?

Dan Gingiss 3:07
Sure thing. So Wiser stands for witty, immersive, shareable, and extraordinary. That’s the wise part. And then the r again, his responsive. And I’m happy to deep dive into all of them with you if you’d like

Gregorio Uglioni 3:22
a sure. But I would like to make it a bit more interesting because everybody’s asking you exactly these questions and therefore, perhaps with with different questions, trying to go to each one, which one was the most interesting to find out for you have from these five letters?

Dan Gingiss 3:41
That’s a really good question. I think to me, the most interesting one is immersive. It’s also the hardest one, I will warn you it’s the most difficult because immersive is really about creating a continuous experience that is on brand that feels like a single journey, adventure, whatever you want to call it with the customer. So often, especially in large companies, especially in financial services, the business is really siloed. And each silo is responsible for a different part of the business, or a bit of excuse me a different part of the experience. And even if each silo does a great job creating an experience, the customer is now seeing one experience after another but they don’t connect with each other, they don’t match up. And being immersive means creating that consistency throughout the experience. And it also usually involves catering to someone’s emotions, or to one of the five senses and if we can do that in a unique way, then we’re onto something you

Gregorio Uglioni 4:55
already killed my next question because you said that it’s also the hardest one therefore I am not asking these one. But for which of these five letters do have the most number of examples?

Dan Gingiss 5:08
That’s definitely Witty. And Witty is also the most fun, let’s be honest, witty, you know, can be defined as funny. But that’s not really how I mean it, I made it as clever. I want people to think of witty as being clever, refusing to be boring, using language to your advantage. So why, why state? Why use language that’s dull when you can use language that’s really interesting. Why use the same words that your competitors use when you can use different words, we so often do things because everybody else does that. But that’s exactly the wrong way to stand out. And so I have a lot of witty examples from signs that are in stores and restaurants. Two things that are people are doing online to just bringing some levity and personality and character to your communications, which is not hard to do as long as you focus on

Gregorio Uglioni 6:09
it makes total sense. And you are also you have quite a lot of science in your books, because the first thing that you’re doing with the book is looking through them. And they find out one that I think it’s really outstanding. It’s we accept cash, credit cards and whiskey that they actually a nice one

Dan Gingiss 6:26
actually this is actually on the side of a food truck. And what I loved about this example, besides the fact that it is humorous, is that I found this food truck at a conference that I was speaking at, they had so many people at this conference that they brought in 40 food trucks to feed everybody. So you got a ticket, and you could choose which food truck, every kind of food you can imagine was there. I will tell you, I don’t even remember what kind of food this food truck offered. But I as soon as I saw that sign, that’s the one that I chose. Because I realized that I wanted to do business with a company that had a sense of humor. And that got me to smile. Did it get me to fall on the floor laughing rolling around? No, it’s not that funny. But it’s cute. It’s clever. It got my attention. And it gave me something to talk about with them. Right? You know, like, Hey, does anyone actually ever pay you in whiskey? It’s a conversation starter. And that begins a relationship. And so I love that sign. Because they just again, they decided to be a little bit different. I know why you like that sign, because you’re the credit card business.

Gregorio Uglioni 7:36
And therefore, I read that first. No, joke by side. And, and which one was the last one that came to your mind of these letters?

Dan Gingiss 7:47
Um, I would say that that one was probably shareable. And the reason for that is that I hesitated on shareable since that’s also the goal, right? We want people to share. And so can I really have shareable as one of the elements of creating a remarkable experience? And the reason I came to Yes, is that people do not share by accident, you have to be strategic and planful about it. And that doesn’t mean, hey, everybody, follow me on Instagram, and tag me and use my hashtag. And be sure to take a picture selfie, if you’re doing this, this versus this, that contains way too many instructions for me. And most people don’t want to do that. As a friend of mine likes to say if you have to tell someone it’s a selfie spot, it probably isn’t. Because the whole idea of a selfie is that it is spontaneous. And so if, if the answer is not to tell people to follow you and tag you and use your hashtag, well, then what is it? It’s about being very strategic, around what part of the experience are people going to pull out their phones like we did with the with a box of chocolates and take a picture. And it’s about understanding that everything is shareable. There is no such thing as an offline experience anymore. You might be thinking that something’s offline because there’s no cameras around or you’re in an airplane or your whatever in your hotel room. But all that has to happen is somebody takes out their their phone, takes a picture or a video and shares it online. And now that offline experience has become online. And companies have to think about that not just to prevent the bad stuff from coming online. But to actually figure out where do we want people to share and where and how can we make it so that we don’t have to tell them to share? They just do it? They can’t help themselves? Just like the sparkler, right? It would have been a totally different experience. If the waiter put the dessert in front of us and then said, Folks, we have a favor to ask of you today. Would you mind taking a picture of this dessert and Then our Instagram handle is such and such Would you go on please and share this picture and don’t forget to use our hashtag, like that would completely ruin the experience. He didn’t have to say any of that. We couldn’t help ourselves, we just reached into our pockets or purses or wallets or whatever it is to get our phone naturally. And that is the shareable piece. And so that did come to me last because like I said, I hesitated that maybe I was creating a circular loop. But I don’t think so I think it worked out Well.

Gregorio Uglioni 10:29
No, thank you. And I started having some issues with the alphabet. Therefore, if you go wiser, I think now we should discuss about the E. Because we didn’t pre discuss the question. Therefore, I don’t have any question to be sure that you select the E? Never could you please elaborate a bit on that.

Dan Gingiss 10:48
Sure. So extraordinary, is really two words extra ordinary. And the idea is being a little bit better than ordinary. Nobody shares ordinary. Let me tell you about the perfectly average restaurant I went to last night said no one ever. Let me tell you about the soso hotel I stayed at last week when I was in London. Nobody says that. What they say is, I stayed at the most amazing hotel ever. And here’s why. Or you won’t believe how horrible this hotel was. And here’s why. That’s what people talk about. And so extraordinary is about saying, if we’re ordinary right now, we know for a fact, no one’s going to talk about us. So how do we elevate that experience just a little bit to become extraordinary. And the best part is, is that most of the time your competitors are ordinary also. So if you can become extraordinary, then you can also outshine the competitor. Now one thing that extraordinary is not it is not about outspending the competition. So, yes, I could tell you that I think a great idea would be for you to take all of your customers and invite them to a private Beyonce concert with a private firework show. And you would say, Dan, that sounds great. I don’t have $5 million to spend on that. And so that’s not what I mean, by extraordinary. I mean, take some of the things in your experience that are just average, and make them a little bit better than average. And you will be surprised at how much that makes you stand out. Especially if you can do it consistently.

Gregorio Uglioni 12:30
Yes, and that it’s really interesting also, because you are in one discussion that you had you were also elaborating on that, that these these experiences are also not repeatable, meaning you often speak about the Dubrovsky effect. And perhaps if you could quickly explain that, because I think this is also really, really important that you cannot create the extraordinary experience that fits for everybody,

Dan Gingiss 12:55
the Dubrovnik effect, where did you see that? I don’t really remember writing about that.

Gregorio Uglioni 13:01
Because a podcast.

Dan Gingiss 13:03
Oh, very good. So when I got married, we went on a Mediterranean cruise for our honeymoon. And we visited Spain and Italy and France and Greece. And then we visited Dubrovnik, Croatia, and we had never been there. We didn’t know anything about Croatia. And we had an amazing day. I mean, just fell in love with Croatia. And we, you know, sat and had a coffee at an outdoor cafe. And we walked the city walls. And we just it was I don’t know, the weather was perfect. Everything was perfect. A couple years later, we go back to Dubrovnik, and we try to recreate that day. But the magic is gone. And we drank coffee at the same cafe and we walked on the same walls. And it was also a beautiful day. But the magic wasn’t there. And so we we termed that the Dubrovnik principle, which doesn’t mean anything. It’s just what we called it, which is essentially to say that it’s very difficult to repeat experiences and have the same effect. And so the next time I went to Dubrovnik a third time, and I decided that that time, I wasn’t going to go to the same cafe I wasn’t going to walk though I was going to try to have a different experience. And that was actually a lot better. Because I wasn’t trying to repeat something. We all have wonderful experiences with our loved ones in our lives. But going back and trying to do it again is hard because you just you don’t have all of the elements lining up like you did the first time.

Gregorio Uglioni 14:40
Thank you very much also for this explanation. And I think you are getting at least 10 requests a month to come to podcasts to present something and therefore that’s my duty to prepare very well, when I’m discussing with such professionals to ask questions that not everybody’s asking.

Dan Gingiss 14:58
I am I am impressed with, you are the first person that ever asked me about the Dubrovnik principle, it’s not anything I’ve written about it, I must have talked about it on a podcast. And so, so good job, you definitely have done your homework.

Gregorio Uglioni 15:11
Okay? No, thank you. In fact, why is it you already elaborate on the R. But do you want to add something on the last note the last piece,

Dan Gingiss 15:20
really just to say, look, when customers reach out to you, you have to answer them. And if they’re asking a question, they need an answer. If they’re complaining, generally, it’s because they care, they actually want you to resolve their problem. If they didn’t care, they’d be part of your leaky bucket, they would just leave and not tell you. So the fact that they’re complaining, and I don’t mean trolls, I don’t mean people who are spewing hate speech or spam or anything like that. I mean, people who have a genuine complaint about your product or service, they want a resolution, so you got to be there for them. And in terms of the people who complement what I find fascinating about this, is that really, there’s no other channel or mechanism that consumers have had to complement a brand. Think about it. I mean, before social media was around. How did you express brand love, right? I mean, I, as a kid, I used to write certain brands a letter and put it in the mail, and maybe they would respond, you don’t call customer service to say thank you, or you’re doing a great job. So social media comes along. And all of a sudden, people are willing to talk really positively about brands and talk about the brands they love. And when somebody takes time out of their day to and uses up their social capital, to compliment your brand, you best be there to say thank you and to say something nice back. It’s like, I always use the example of I get off stage after a keynote. And somebody comes up to me says, Man, that was an amazing speech, Dan, and I just walked past them and ignore them. I have a feeling they’re not going to think really highly about me. But of course, I stop and say, Oh, thank you so much, what was your favorite part and I engage them. Brands have the same opportunity to do this. And social and often don’t do it. Because like consumers not having a mechanism. Brands never had a mechanism because nobody ever complimented them before. So their customer service agents are only used to handling complaints. They don’t even know what to do with a compliment. But now that they’re there, we’ve got to treat them with the same urgency and get part of that conversation become part of that conversation. To encourage that behavior. We want more people complimenting us in public on their social channels, so all their friends and followers can see it. We like when that happens. So we might as well encouraged.

Gregorio Uglioni 17:46
Thank you very much. And the last thing that I can say about your book, the experience maker how to create remarkable experience that your customer can’t wait to share. Buy it, , pause this podcast, go to Amazon, buy it, and then come back, please. And if you already voted, it will also help them if you go to Amazon and leave a short review. Again, post this, this podcast, it’s 20 to 30 seconds. But it helps quite a lot also, then to create the next book and to create the next experience for us. Thank you very much, Dan. We are coming to the last part of this of this podcast. Don’t worry, it’s not so long as first as the first piece are in the last three, four questions to get you know, a bit better. Is there a book that you would suggest to the audience, not the one that you wrote but another one that you said it, it helps in your career?

Dan Gingiss 18:40
Yes, one of my favorite books is actually a marketing book. It’s called “they ask you answer” by Marcus Sheridan. And he basically teaches you how to become the best teachers in your industry, how to have the content that people seek out about your product service industry, so that every time they go Google something, they land back on your site to get the answer. And he has a brilliant example of many brains examples, but he actually was the owner of a swimming pool company. And so he uses a lot of examples from that industry. And what he accomplished was just amazing. So that is a that is definitely a book I highly recommend and it’s very actionable.

Gregorio Uglioni 19:23
Thank you very much. The next strange question from my side, which Gin Tonic do you like most?

Dan Gingiss 19:31
Well, thank you for referencing a story in my book. I am a purist. I like my gin and tonic with just a squeeze of lime, nothing else. And thank you very much.

Gregorio Uglioni 19:43
If it would not be digital, then I would bring that to you, more than happy. But if you’re coming to Switzerland, more than happy to offer you one or more than one.

Dan Gingiss 19:51
Well, thank you. I appreciate it

Gregorio Uglioni 19:53
with a nice dinner. If somebody would like to contact you what’s the best way

Dan Gingiss 19:59
go to D A N G I N G I S S dot C O M That’s my website. And you can contact me there. By the way, if you are on the site and you go to the book page, which is d a n g i n g i s s dot com slash book, if you have ordered the book like Gregorio suggested, you can get three free bonuses just by putting in your order number and your name and email. So feel free to go and do that and redeem that. But I’m also on Twitter and LinkedIn, easy to find, because my last name is, is pretty unique gingiss g i n g i s s. And because I practice what I preach, I will be responsive. So if you reach out to me and have a question or want to connect, I will definitely respond back.

Gregorio Uglioni 20:39
Thank you very much. And the real last question is the question I always ask is, Dan’s golden nugget is something that we discussed or something new that you would leave to the to the audience.

Dan Gingiss 20:52
Sure, if you do one thing, when you’re done listening to this podcast, I want you to figure out how to become a customer of your own company. If you can’t, if you absolutely, if it’s impossible, then I want you to shadow a real customer. And when I mean shadow, I mean go and talk to them and spend a day with them to see what it is like to be a customer. I’ll give you an example from the credit card industry, which is really has an interesting problem. Many credit card companies have the issue that their customer service agents don’t qualify for their card, so they can’t apply for one. The problem is those same customer service agents are trying to guide customers through the Account Center Online, a website that they have never been to because they don’t have an account. We have to make sure that especially our frontline folks, but also anyone involved in customer experience is a customer of your own business is the only way that you will truly experience the good, the bad and the ugly. And related to that is keep in mind as a consumer, what are you like, what makes you happy when a brand does this to you, and what annoys you? What stands in your way and make sure that you’re doing more of the stuff that you like, and less of the stuff that is annoys you, and you’re going to be really fine in customer experience.

Gregorio Uglioni 22:14
Thank you very much, Dan. It was really a great pleasure to have you on the sea scorekeeper podcast. Thank you.

Dan Gingiss 22:20
My pleasure. Thank you,

Gregorio Uglioni 22:22
and also to the audience. I hope that you enjoyed this discussion as much as I did. It was really an outstanding discussion. And the last word I would like to share with you is please please please buy this book, because it’s really an outstanding book, and we will help Dan continues his journey in customer experience and delighting us with this outstanding insights. Thank you very much.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it word of mouth, subscribe it, share it until the next episode. Please don’t forget, we are not in a b2b or b2c business. we are in a human to human environment. Thank you

⚽️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The CX Goalkeeper Podcast ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⚽️

👍 Do you like it?

Please tell to 2 friends, colleagues or family members about the CX Goalkeeper Podcast. Only with your support I can continue share amazing discussions!

🎙 CX Goalkeeper what???

you can find it on your preferred podcasting platform:

www.cxgoalkeeper.com/podcast

PLEASE 🙏 don’t forget to

✅ subscribe it

Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3qYr4nh

… if you are an Apple User please rate it & review it!

Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/3rxRm0aCXGK

Spotify: https://bit.ly/3GhCGXeCXGK

Amazon Podcast: https://bit.ly/3xYYDaECXGK

Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3pws7ISCXGK

📹 as a Webcast you can subscribe it on YouTube