Uplifting Service with Ron Kaufman – E70 – Second Half

Release date: 11.04.2022 (recorded in the first week of January)

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

The CX Goalkeeper had the great opportunity to interview RON KAUFMAN

Ron’s LinkedIn Headline: New York Times Bestselling Author “UPLIFTING SERVICE” | Customer Experience & Service Culture Expert | Keynote Speaker

This discussion was split in 2 episodes. On April 4th, the first episode went live. LINK

Highlights:

00:00 Service Process & Service Perception
6:11 Measurement of service quality
9:35 The future of service (“A customer is anyone who is not me”)
13.30 Book suggestion
15:50 Contact details
17:20 Ron’s Golden Nugget

… and much more

Ron’s Contact Details:

Please watch also this video from Ron #worldcleanupday

His book suggestion:

“The invention of yesterday”, written by Tamim Ansary

also mentioned:

“Sapiens”, written by Yuval Noah Harari

Ron’s Golden Nuggets:

“Education for well-being for the humanity”

“Education for the well-being for the humanity” @RonKaufman on the CX Goalkeeper Podcast
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“A life well lived contributes to the well being of others”

“A life well lived contributes to the well being of others” @RonKaufman on the CX Goalkeeper Podcast
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Thank you, Ron!

If you want to listen to both episodes at the same time:

#customerexperience #leadership #cxgoalkeeper #cxtransformation #podcast

Transcription:

Gregorio Uglioni 0:01
Thank you very much. It’s really it’s really great explanation. And also linking on that, I think there are also different views on service. Because from the inside, let’s say employees are executing processes, and doing one after the other based on scripts or information that they get. But as a customer, as soon as you said, all the different customers perceive in a different way they experienced that they are facing, and therefore also, could you please elaborate a bit on this difference between service process and, and service perceptions? Because, yes, within a company, you have clear KPIs, you need to do that quick pom pom pom pom, but the perception exactly is different.

Ron Kaufman 0:46
Exactly. So the fundamental distinction is the service process is everything you do. The service Perception is everything that they experience, everything that they notice everything that they like or don’t like, and they’re not exactly the same. Now, for sure, the service process influences the service perception. But there are times when you can improve the service perception. And it’s not something that has to do with the process. Let me give you an example. You could have a bank that has a certain KPIs. And let’s say the internal service process for approving a large loan, let’s say someone wants to buy a house, or they want an equity line of credit, or whatever it may be. And you say, Okay, our internal KPI is that we will get back to that person within seven days, 10 days, 14 days of when we have received all of the documents. Well, if you’re the person who submits all the documents, and 4, 5, 6 , 7 days have gone by, and you’ve heard nothing from the bank, are you sitting here going, gee, I feel great about this loan application. No, you’re sitting there wondering what’s happening. So what would make more sense for the bank to say, from the moment we get all of the documents, number one, we’re going to send them a confirmation to let them know, every one of the documents has been received, we’re now going into this period of let’s say, seven to 10 days, at three or four days in, it might be very appropriate to send another message. It could even be automatic, that says, Hi, we’re touching base to let you know that the review of your loan application is in process. And so far, everything’s going smoothly, as promised, you’ll be hearing from us within the seven to 10 day period. Now, that didn’t change anything about the status of the application. But the fact that you added that additional moment of communication, how does that feel to the customer who made the application? They’re not sitting there wondering, wondering, wondering, they’re up there on it, they’ve got it, these guys are great. And then you know what, when you actually do respond to the application, let’s say within seven or 10 days, what a perfect situation it by the way, if your KPI was seven days, I would tell them seven to 10 days. So that on the seventh day, you’re able to say we promised you seven to 10. Here we are on the first of those three days, and we’ve got an answer for your application. Did we able to follow that one? Gregorio

Gregorio Uglioni 3:28
Yes, it totally makes sense. And at the end this, as you mentioned, it could be also an automatic information. But the customer perceptions is it’s personalized, because it’s related to the case. Exactly. It’s care about me. And it’s proactive, I am not asking and calling where does the where is my loan, but I get proactive and information that the company is caring about me.

Ron Kaufman 3:53
Now let’s go to a b2b situation, where it’s not just a loan application like much via maybe a much larger, more complex or more expensive purchase between a vendor, a supplier and an end customer situation. And you could even have multiple points of contact between these two organizations. And if you ask from the customer side, some of those people might very much appreciate being updated each step along the way. Other people might appreciate not being bothered, unless something is going to be late. And then there may be other people who say, Well, I just want to know at certain key milestones, let’s agree with those milestones are. So if you’re the company that’s serving this large b2b client, you cannot just show up with your process and say this is how we’re going to keep you informed and expect on the client side for them to say that that was excellent service. It might be adequate service. It might Be an expected level of service because you have your standards and your process and your own KPIs. But if you don’t ask the customer, how would you like to be informed, then you’re just going to be executing your process without being fully aware of how to create an excellent service perception.

Gregorio Uglioni 5:20
It totally makes sense. And I think even more in b2b Is this important because for these big contracts that get renewed each five year or each 10 years, it’s extremely important to work throughout the journey of the relationship. And not only coming two days before the contract renewal, please sign in, and we continue working together. And that totally makes sense. And it’s extremely important. And, yes,

Ron Kaufman 5:46
if it’s three to five years in between each repurchase or renewal, the person that was on the client side last time may not be the same person. Exactly. Right. So let’s let us not assume, let us inquire.

Gregorio Uglioni 6:00
And and in the meantime, perhaps they have a new CEO, and the new CEO knows people and I know other companies and all this stuff that that we know. But coming back to our discussion, you mentioned that, that it’s important also to measure serve the quality of service. And based on all the explanation that you gave to me, I cannot think that net promoter score, even if it’s a great KPI could really fit in your definition of measurement of, of the quality of service. What’s your view always possible to measure and service?

Ron Kaufman 6:37
Yeah, there are many ways that you can measure service so that one of the answer I’m going to give you is not the do all be all and end all of service measurement. But I want to say something that’s more relevant to this issue of care, because care is concern for and commitment to well being. And be ing is a verb. So it’s a future oriented focus. If I say that I’m genuinely committed to someone’s well being, then I want to take action now that contributes to their future. In the world of customer service, there’s two words there. One is service, that’s the service provider, but the other one is customer. And we’re reaching an era where I believe that customers can also step up to be concerned for and committed to the well being of their service providers. In other words, it’s not just where do I get the best deal? And how do I make the most money? And you know, what am I going to endure, and you don’t care about the future well, being of those who are serving you, in the world that we’re going forward into, we need a stronger sense of partnership between those who are serving and those who are being served. A good example of that right now is anyone who’s listening who may be involved in government service, or civil service, and you realize that they’re serving the population, the citizens, the visitors, the employers, the labor force, the elderly, the students in schools, this is all government service, well, who’s the customer, the population? But should the population also be treating everyone who’s in government service, like a partner? Like what can I do to demonstrate my concern and commitment to their future well being, not just take them for granted? Not just say, Well, hey, I paid my taxes, you have to now make me happy? No, we are in a social commitment to and concern for one another. And that would actually then be a service partnership. Now, how do you measure that? And that would be asking questions like, what is the likelihood that you would like to continue to work with me in the future or that you trust me to be someone to work with you and be an advisor for you or a supplier to you? When you’re thinking about going into new areas? To what extent? Would you want to be in conversation with me about that possibility? before you’ve even made the decision? Because you’re designing your future? Do you think of me that way, as someone to be in conversation with? Or am I just a low price vendor that you should squeeze to try to get the most that you can out of that transaction

Gregorio Uglioni 9:34
Thank you very much. It’s make total sense that it’s really thinking about long term partnership giving and getting something and not only focused on specific I need to create this and that. Thank you very much. I think what I am learning or what we learned from your book, but also from this discussion is, is that service is a mindset. It’s not only a process or a roadmap to implement, but it’s it’s even bigger. And I think that you often also speaks about the future. And therefore, I would like to understand from you, how do you see the future development of service. And basically, as I already mentioned, we saw on your webpage service, care and love, you’ve spoken a lot about service use per speaking now, these days, this man’s about care. And I think the next step could be love. But how is it possible to achieve that? And to get to that,

Ron Kaufman 10:30
yeah. Gregorio, first let you know, let me say that this topic and issue of love, I, by no means profess to be someone who’s, who’s prepared to be an educator in that space. Alright, I recognize that what underlies the desire to serve someone is care of some sort. And I can identify that what underlies this human, biological, mammalian historical urge to care about something, it has to do with a phenomenon of love. But I don’t propose myself as an educator of that. So allow me to pin that either for a few decades, and we can talk again, or until you think you’re ready to teach me something, and then I’ll be happy to learn. In the meantime, let me talk to this issue of service as a mind set. There’s a lovely gentleman named Doug, who was president of a company I did some work for, and he had one of the best definitions of customer I ever heard. He said, a customer is anyone who’s not me. Now, when you take that position, than a customer in life in the world, is anyone who’s not me, then every other person in the world is somebody potentially, that I could think about in terms of what can I do for them, that would uplift their life that would create more value that would make them feel recognized or appreciated, or encouraged or admired, or just seen? That’s, you know, services a mindset is, what can I do for you? Not what’s in it for me. Now, again, I’m not asking people to just be completely altruistic for no reason, because the joy of serving is the incredible gift that you get when you give. So if you orient yourself towards giving the others, what comes back to you, is so much more authentic than what you go out and try to get for yourself. When you ask about the future of service, I think what’s happening right now on the planet, where we’ve got the kind of ecological tremendous difficulties and challenges that we’re going to face as a species, and COVID was just sort of the opening show to have people become aware of this is just how fragile we are. Just how dependent on one another we are, and just how fluid our experience of life can actually be there for what is it you’re going to do not just with the rest of your life, but with the next moment in your life, that will take good care of yourself by taking good care of you and other people.

Gregorio Uglioni 13:12
And as you’re saying of the environment?

Ron Kaufman 13:16
Yeah.

Gregorio Uglioni 13:17
Thank you very much. It was really a great discussion. And now we are coming to the last part of this. Of this CX Goalkeeper show, I have three questions for you. And these are questions that also would help the listener to understand you better and to also to get the opportunity to talk with you. The first question is, is there a book that you were saying it’s something that I would like to suggest to the audience because it helped me during my career?

Ron Kaufman 13:45
Well, you mentioned my book, because it was helpful in terms of career with your permission, could I answer the question with a book recommendation that I think will be good for someone’s life?

Gregorio Uglioni 13:57
Even better!

Ron Kaufman 13:59
Okay. So the book I want to recommend, and I read about one book, every week, I go for long walks every day, and I use audible to listen to books and I, I do it, you know, almost at twice the speed and and when I’m walking I mean with the trees and the birds and the book. And there’s a particular book that was recommended to me by one of my mentors, Dr. Fernando Flores, and the book is called The invention of yesterday. Now, you’ve all know a Noah Harari wrote the book Sapiens, which many people have heard about, it’s been translated into many languages. And it’s an outstanding book, and I sincerely recommend it. And that was really the ecological biological evolution of Homo sapiens. But this book called The invention of yesterday, was written by Tamim Ansary, and it took him seven years it’s a history of the world. And it was how the cultures and the traditions and the habits and the styles and the languages and The practices that have evolved around the world how did they evolve and move and come into each other and blend and mesh and become an in reading that book, I was actually able to locate the life that I’m living, which is quite an international life. I live in Singapore, I’ve been traveling a lot of course, my life, you know, I’m not in the in the even the side of the world I was born in, but for anyone, anywhere, to locate yourself as a human being who’s alive in the world today. How did you get here? And I’m not asking the biological question which the book Sapiens answers, I’m asking the cultural question, which the book The invention of yesterday, answers beautifully.

Gregorio Uglioni 15:45
Thank you very much. I think it’s something where we all can profit from. The next question is the usual one. But I think it’s important also to ask that if somebody would like to contact you what’s what’s the best way.

Ron Kaufman 15:58
There are three different ways one is to go to my website, which is Ron kaufman dot com. And I know you’re in Europe, where Kaufman is with two “n”‘s, but I think one of the “n” left off when the the ancestors moved to the United States. So it’s r o n k a u f m a n . c o m . The second is, you can find me on LinkedIn, there’s a very active channel there with social media postings just about every day. And the third is that you can just go to YouTube, and type in my name, Ron Kaufman. And if you add the word service, you’re going to find me by the way, if you put the word Ron Kaufman and the word trash, like garbage, trash, you’ll see a really interesting video about one of my hobbies, which is that when I’m out in the morning walking, and I’m listening to those audio books, I also carry with me plastic bags, and a trash picker upper, and I clean up neighborhoods that I walk in.

Gregorio Uglioni 16:54
And I remember what not only in outside, but also in the ocean. Are you doing that?

Ron Kaufman 17:00
That’s true, my wife and I are scuba divers, couple 1000 dives a piece. And one of the things that when we go diving we carry with us mesh bags. And as we come up out of the dive, we literally the first thing we do is hand up onto the boat, these bags that are filled with fishing lines and T shirts and plastic bags and you know anything that should not be down there, where the hunters we just love to clean it up.

Gregorio Uglioni 17:23
I think that’s great. And it shows your passion for what we are doing and that you are really doing what you are also are saying. the last question for you. It’s I named that the golden nugget. It’s something that we discussed or something new that you would like to leave to the audience.

Ron Kaufman 17:41
Well, actually there there are two phrases, one of which you reminded me of today in this interview, which is “education for the well being of humanity”. And thank you very much. Because I’ve been working with some people on what might be the subtitle of my next book. And you reminded me that I wrote that, and I hadn’t thought about it for a while. So thank you, Gregorio. But the other and people will find this on my website. It’s It’s a phrase that I said at some point. And I just want to end with this because it really does make sense. “A life well lived, contributes to the well being of others”. A life well lived doesn’t result in you being the richest person in the graveyard. It doesn’t result in you being the most famous person who’s ever lived. a life well lived is one where other people are glad that you lived or glad that you’re alive right now. And so to live one’s life that way, gives this sense of fulfillment, purpose, meaning satisfaction, and let’s be candid, we’re all going to age, we’re all going to become elders, there will come a point where all of us pass. And I’ve heard that, you know, the jokes is nobody, nobody’s on their deathbed saying, Gosh, I wish I’d spent more time at the office. But I can see people saying, you know, I wish I had. And it’s not so much the bucket list of having climbed Mount Everest, baby, it’s, I wish I’d been a bit kinder. I wish I’d been a bit more generous. I wish I’d been more helpful. I wish I’d reached out and had that difficult conversation that would have helped to heal something or forgive something or respect something, rather than just let it drift and pass on without it being resolved. a life well lived, contributes to the well being of others.

Gregorio Uglioni 19:29
Thank you very much for it was really an outstanding discussion. And the only thing that I can say is really thank you very much. I hope that we stick to the spirit of the game that we were responsible together for the quality of the discussion for me, over achieved because it was an outstanding discussion, and I hope that the audience enjoyed the discussion as much as I did. Thank you very much, Ron.

Ron Kaufman 19:55
Gregorio, thank you very much for being the host of this channel. And for today’s interview. I appreciate it.

Gregorio Uglioni 20:01
Thank you very much. Good luck to me out there. It was a big pleasure.

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