Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Let’s talk now about service and what it means from the recipient’s point of view, and how important it is for the service provider to understand the recipient’s experience. 

Service is not the process that you do. It’s not the checklist that you follow. It’s not the procedure step by step. Service is the experience of the person who is being served. It’s their opinion. It’s their perception that actually matters. A lot of service providers either don’t understand that or they don’t know how to talk about it, and they certainly don’t know how to communicate it to the other members of their team. 

Let me show you what I’ve created to be able to help solve this problem. I invented something here called the Six Levels of Service. I created the six levels of service to provide a means for a group of people to understand the service experience from the recipient’s point of view, and to be able to talk about it and communicate about it together. At the lowest of these six levels is when you break a service promise, you violate legitimate minimum expectations.

Now, that’s terrible. It’s awful. It’s so bad, I call it “Criminal”. One level up is when you serve someone and you deliver the bare minimum service experience. The recipient gets what they need, but the experience itself was not very nice. Perhaps you were incomplete or impolite, or the delivery came late. Perhaps there was an error, but eventually you fixed it and the customer got the bare minimum. We call that “Basic”.

One level above that is serving someone the way they expect. It’s average. It’s normal. It’s industry standard. Let’s call this “Expected”. 

In the past, long ago, we used to say that satisfying customers came from meeting their expectations and we used to believe that a satisfied customer would be a loyal customer. Now, you and I know today that’s no longer true. You might be very satisfied somewhere, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be any more loyal in the future. That is why the expected level is in the bottom half. 

So let’s keep going. Above expected as when you serve someone the way they like it, the way they hope for, the way they prefer. I call this “Desired”. For example, some people say “Just serve me fast.” But the very next customer could say, “Please don’t rush me. I want to take my time.” You can have one client who says, “I’m looking for the least expensive solution”. But the very next client can say, “We have a healthy budget. We’re willing to pay more. Help us understand what we can get from your value adding services.” 

So in order to serve someone the way they desire, you’ve got to understand what they appreciate, what they want, what they need, what they will value. Above desire is when you do something unexpected, and for the customer, it’s like receiving a special gift. “Ooh, what a nice surprise”. In order to surprise a customer, you’ve got to understand what it is that they want, need, appreciate and value and then you’ve got to think about them and do something for them that they did not already have in mind. You put your creative abilities to work, focusing on their interests and needs. Surprising is something special. Above that is the astonishing. The extraordinary. The incredible. It’s so amazing. I call it “Unbelievable”. 

Wow. Now these are the once in a lifetime. These are the stories that go viral. These are the O-M-G levels of service. 

My book is not called The Six Levels of Service. I did not write a book about delivering surprising service. I wrote a book called ‘Uplifting Service’. So where is uplifting on the six levels of service? You may look at this and go, Well, uplifting has got to be unbelievable. But that’s not a sustainable level to deliver. Uplifting, well, let me show you a secret. 

These six levels of service are not even fixed. They’re not steps, They’re not stairs. This is an escalator. It’s in motion. It’s always going down, not up, down. Why would I say that? Because if you do something for someone that is unbelievable, it will be the first time you do it. But the next time you do it, it’s not unbelievable because you did it before. But it might be a nice surprise. By the third time, it’s what they desire. By the fourth time, it’s become expected. By the fifth time, it’s nothing special, just basic. And then one day, if you don’t do it well, that could even be considered criminal. 

Let me show you some examples. When this phone first came out, which we affectionately call ‘The Brick’ by Motorola, it was unbelievable that you could have a telephone call without a wire. Today, of course, that is absolutely basic. There was a time when putting the world’s information meant having a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica on your bookshelf. And today you only need an Internet browser to get to Wikipedia. 

There was a time when taking photographs was so colorful that Paul Simon wrote a song with Art Garfunkel. Kodachrome. Today we’re just counting millions upon millions of megapixels and even something as innovative and new in our world as constant delivery of services and products to our doorstep. Even that will change as the drones bring those packages directly to your backyard, front yard or porch or balcony.

So we go back to the question: where is uplifting service on The Six Levels of Service? 

We could legitimately see that it’s not a stable spot because the stairs themselves are slipping down. So uplifting is not a fixed position. Uplifting means you’ve got to be continuously improving. Uplifting service means realizing where you are today in the world and in the hearts and minds of your customers and taking the next step up. Now, earlier, I taught you that the definition of service is “Taking action to create value for someone else.” 

Then the definition of uplifting service is “Taking the next action to create more value, not just for someone else, but for someone you care about”. Someone whose future you’re committed to, whose well-being you are dedicated to enable.