Customer Service

In theater, breaking the fourth wall refers to addressing the audience directly. Recently I had an experience where the customer service rep “broke the fourth wall” making me a fan for life. How can you apply this breakthrough strategy to your business?

I found myself alone with my daughter, Shi, and did what most dads do in this situation: went out for pizza. My daughter is two years old and taking her anywhere requires a multitude of items including toys, diaper bag and the kid herself. We went to the local Round Table Pizza where I ordered a King Arthur and then had fun wandering with Shi until the order was ready. While eating, an amazing thing happened — the young woman behind the counter came around to see how we were doing.

Now I would expect this at a more expensive sit-down style restaurant. But at Pizza it was startling. In that moment I went from quietly enjoying my meal to becoming a grateful parent.

Most businesses that have a counter between the customer and the employees use that counter as a barrier. The unspoken message is clear as you walk up: this is my side, that is your side. Most employees would never think to cross that divide.

This got me thinking about the “forth walls” we put up between ourselves and our customers. From phone systems to email there is an invisible divide that keeps us on our side and them on theirs. Being Incluesive means bringing the two together.

It’s time to bring out the wrecking ball and knock down those walls!

Marketing face-to-face can be difficult for many (most?) people. I know I feel a sense of envy when a door-to-door salesman appears completely at ease talking to me about their product on my front porch!

Welcome to Full Contact Marketing.

Full Contact Marketing is any face-to-face meeting with any (potential) customer. It can be door-to-door sales or working a trade show booth or taking orders over a counter. Often, Full Contact Marketing is considered just customer service.

But it is so much more!

Your poeple on the front lines represent your business brand more than any advertisement or PR campaign ever could. People relate to people. And if that relationship goes bad…

Front line people = Your brand

Are you inspecting your people before they go out to represent you? Do you offer coaching to help them polish their pitch, service and appearance? How can you inject confidense into your Full Contact Marketing program?

Experience marketing is all the rage and has been for quite a while. So how do you build an experience?

First, you need to define what the experience is you want to give away (we’ll get to that later - stay tuned). Then you need to work on your people. Stop hiring “customer service reps” and start hiring performers. You want people trained to deliver a world-class experience to deliver your world-class experience, right?

Think about how Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have revolutionized infotainment.

Call it… performance marketing.