SNS76: Interview with Dr. Kelly Henry author of Define and Deliver Exceptional Customer Service
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 76.
[00:00:09] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:00:09] I'm Dr. Kelly Henry. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to deliver excellent. Customer service is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader,
[00:00:42] one of the biggest areas that I find that Not always needs improvement, but the vast majority of time when I'm working with client needs improvement is how they are working with and treated their employees. Because you have to have a great teamwork. You have to have a great team. You'd have to have a great [00:01:00] relationship with your employees, for them to turn around and treat the customers in an appropriate way.
[00:01:05] Fantastic,
[00:01:06] Scott Maderer: [00:01:06] Matt. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures. For your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:37] And tonight and Saturday night special, I interviewed Dr. Kelly Henry. Kelly shares with you, what customer service really means and why it matters, even if you aren't in business. Kelly and I talk about how we have blind spots when it comes to customer service and what we can do about them. And I also asked Kelly to share with you how to have a better customer service mindset.
[00:01:59] Now, one [00:02:00] area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really, really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.
[00:02:33] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.
[00:02:51] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work [00:03:00] for anyone. And we help you do that in productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash launch. Dr. Kelly Henry is an Arthur of define and deliver exceptional customer service.
[00:03:16] He's a speaker and a business consultant who has a passion for helping business owners make their business boom. As a chiropractor, he learned about the challenges that come with small business ownership. Personally through that he learned to really focus on not just trying hard and balancing all the needs of the business, but also on focusing on customer service as the route to business success through the 5% bump program.
[00:03:42] Welcome to the show Kelly.
[00:03:45] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:03:45] Thank you, Scott. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity.
[00:03:49] Scott Maderer: [00:03:49] Absolutely. It's one of those topics that we talked a little bit about in the intro is that you focus so much on customer service. And I think at first glance, this is one of those things [00:04:00] that people say, Oh, that only applies to business owners, but yeah.
[00:04:03] We've talked before, and I know your ideas behind it are a little bit broader than that. So let's talk a little bit about customer service. It's one of those terms that I think business owners throw around, you hear it, everyone says they haven't, we've got excellent customer service. I don't care who you talk to.
[00:04:19] They've all. Got it. So let's talk a little bit about that word. What do you mean by the term customer service?
[00:04:26] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:04:26] Well, how I define customer service is it's a relentless focus. On the customer each and every time they're with you in the business, doing business with you, and you're making that customer feel their best.
[00:04:39] That's customer service for me, you are making that customer feel valued, important, special, liked like a rockstar each in each and every time you interact with them.
[00:04:51]Scott Maderer: [00:04:51] And if you change that word customer into just person.
[00:04:56] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:04:56] Yes. It goes beyond the bounds of business. That's for sure. So
[00:05:00] [00:05:00] Scott Maderer: [00:05:00] I think at a church, right?
[00:05:01]That's, you've got customers there, there are different kinds of customer, but you've got customers there, your family your, all the interactions that we have as well. So it's relentless focus on that person, that customer each and every time to make them feel their best. So does that mean that, the customer's always right.
[00:05:20] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:05:20] It actually doesn't but have, remember that the customer is always your customer, whether they're right and wrong, and if they're wrong, you can deal with that appropriately and still help them to save face and still help them to keep their self-esteem and still feel like you have a bond and a relationship with them, even though they may be wrong.
[00:05:41] And that's a key component that a lot of businesses. Miss. And, since we're talking beyond the bounds of business, we miss that in our lives and our relationships and churches too, that we're very quick to point out mistakes and problems and show that we are authority, be authoritative and superior.
[00:05:59] And [00:06:00] that just doesn't fly. That, that doesn't build relationships, that doesn't build a steam that doesn't that doesn't really help humanity, so to speak. So you have to be careful with that.
[00:06:10] Scott Maderer: [00:06:10] I'm right. You're wrong. And because I said, so aren't usually the best way to deal with people. Not I have to remember that sometimes
[00:06:20] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:06:20] I do too.
[00:06:20] I'm pointing fingers at myself here.
[00:06:23] Scott Maderer: [00:06:23] So let's back up a little bit. You know, you've got a little bit of an interesting journey and story yourself. What really got you started on this progress and this process of becoming focused on customer service.
[00:06:36] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:06:36] Well, I'm a retired chiropractor. And when I first got into practice, I we my family and I moved to a community in New Mexico where my wife was from.
[00:06:45] It's a small community and a lot of the businesses there had been established for years not a whole lot of competition. And so as we started interacting with these different businesses come to find out that customer service wasn't necessarily on the top of the list [00:07:00] of. What they they felt like they needed to do they could turn on their lights and open their doors.
[00:07:04] You had to do business with them and they could treat you however they wanted. And that's really bothered me. And so I made a decision very quickly when I opened my practice that I was going to treat my patients differently. I was not going to make them feel like an inconvenience. We were going to make them feel special.
[00:07:20] And I didn't, I just backed into it. It wasn't because I thought of it as a principal that would help me grow my businesses and to help me to profit greater. It was just, I hated the way I was being treated. So I was going to do it different in my clinics, but once we started rolling with it, patients started saying, Hey, we love how you treat us and telling my staff that and telling me that.
[00:07:42] And they were telling their friends about it and this thing started rolling. And then it really caught my attention on, Hey, what else can we do to promote this? And to build it and to do better with it and be better customer service. And that's what started me on this 20 plus year journey of. Of [00:08:00] learning and implementing, and trial and error, and now coaching and consulting other businesses on the benefits of improving their customer service.
[00:08:10] Scott Maderer: [00:08:10] So if we think about, working with other businesses, which now you work as a coach and as a consultant, you've got this great book that just came out define and deliver exceptional customer service. So this is always an area of focus for you when you've worked with businesses over the years, what are some of the most common misunderstandings, blind spots?
[00:08:31]What. Do businesses overlook or do wrong when it comes to delivering excellent customer service?
[00:08:37] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:08:37] Well, you alluded to it just just a few moments ago and really the biggest one I see, and I called a myth is every business thinks they, they provide great customer service. When I do presentations and I asked that question, everybody raises her hand and said, yes, we provide great customer service.
[00:08:55]The problem is. Those customers or those same [00:09:00] businesses have a different opinion. And they'll say now you, you don't actually provide great customer service. Every business does have pieces of great customer service that, they do a little bit of this, right. And a little bit of this.
[00:09:14] Right. But as a collective whole, and spent logistically that's not enough to actually. Create that level of great customer service that a customer says, yeah, these people are on top of this. And so one is helping businesses understand that, not to point fingers and to say, Hey, you're doing this wrong.
[00:09:34] You need to change it. It say, Hey, yeah, you do have some pieces in of great customer service, but let's look at where you may be missing the Mark. And that's where those blinders are. It's when you don't know you have a problem, you're not going to be looking for areas that that you need to fix.
[00:09:49] And so it's helping them to see that. Yeah. Maybe it's not, you're not providing as great at customer service as you could be or should be. Let's look at some areas that you could improve. Let's fill in the holes, fill in the [00:10:00] gaps and shore things up. And then. Be pleasantly surprised as the perception of your customer service improves in customer retention or referrals or profit gains.
[00:10:13] Scott Maderer: [00:10:13] So give us an example of that. If you think about a real-world business You don't have to name names or anything like that, but that you've worked with in the past, what, what, what do you do to help them figure out where those gaps are, or shore up those gaps or identify those blind spots for a particular business?
[00:10:30] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:10:30] You bet I do. I called it an audit audit is kind of a dirty word, but we do we do a customer service audit and we just start looking at, Hey, are you doing this? Do you have a mission statement? Are you regularly training your staff? Are you doing this, this and this actions? Where are you on this?
[00:10:46] How dedicated are you to this? Is it just, champion? Yes, we provide great customer service, but then, it's just words. So we really dig deep into that. One of the biggest areas that I find that not always needs [00:11:00] improvement, but the vast majority of the time when I'm working with a client needs improvement is how they are working with and treated their employees because.
[00:11:10] You have to have a great teamwork. You have to have a great team. You have to have a great relationship with your employees, for them to turn it around and treat the customers in an appropriate and fantastic matter. So to have that attitude that, we appreciate our employees and we are treating them as good.
[00:11:30] If not better than the. Customers. So they will turn around and treat the customers in a great manner, a special manner. So that's something that that's almost job. Number one, to figure out if that's happening and if it's not happening. And if it's not, then dive deep into that and get that get that figured out and fixed.
[00:11:50] Scott Maderer: [00:11:50] So let's assume for a moment that a small business owner says, okay, I think I'm doing pretty good customer service, but. Probably not as good as I could, maybe [00:12:00] I'm getting some complaints or some feedback or my employees aren't necessarily bought into the process or that sort of thing.
[00:12:06] And they really do want to focus on this area. What are some of the top principles or ideas or applications, whatever it is that they need to learn or need to apply or need to begin to do to start making that transition.
[00:12:23]Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:12:23] The. The top principles that I teach and I coach and consult on for first one is you have to realize you're in whatever business you're in.
[00:12:33] I don't care if you're a chiropractor, you're a church setting. If you are selling insurance, it doesn't matter. Your business is a customer perception business. You are providing a perception, whether good or bad grades, indifferent, terrible, whatever it is, you, you are providing some kind of perception to the customer.
[00:12:54] So you have to realize that that you're driving that perception and there's no neutral to it. It's either they're a [00:13:00] good or bad PR perception, something's happening each and every time you interact with the customer. So you have to keep that in mind. The second principle is.
[00:13:08] You have to realize that customer perception is always driven by how you make the customer feel. So this goes back to my definition, you should have a relentless focus on making the customer feel important, valued their best each and every time. They're with you or doing business with you. And again, that's will drive up that perception.
[00:13:31] So you have to realize that, you're in the customer perception business, and you can drive that perception by how you make that customer feel whether good or bad. So those are two key components to really understand and almost use as a lens to look through as you're making customer service decision decisions.
[00:13:49] The other thing is. It has to be a commitment. And it needs to be a foundation principle, and I was guilty of this when I was in my practices. I would [00:14:00] not necessarily about customer service, but I'd see, I'd be. See an advertisement or a salesman, a call for, about assigning new object or service or whatever the case may be be.
[00:14:09] And, you can make all kinds of money. And there was a few times that I, Oh yeah, I need to do that. And I should do that, got into it. And I was all excited about it for about two weeks. And then, it faded and, put on the back burner and, basically it became a waste of money and that you can't let that happen with your, with customer service.
[00:14:27] It's a business has to buy in. It has to be. Something that they want to implement and needs to be a, again, a foundation principle that continues for the remainder of that business. And when you do that, then you can be consistent with the actions and the principles and the rules that need to apply for it.
[00:14:47] Again, it can't be a shiny object or something that is just A a chalkboard, something to put on the chalkboard I need on the white board for a few days. I
[00:14:56] Scott Maderer: [00:14:56] idea of the moment this is I'm going to focus on this week and [00:15:00] exactly, and cause all your, by the way, wouldn't you business owner, church, whatever, when you change your direction all the time.
[00:15:08] Your employees basically learn, Oh, I don't have to actually do anything. I can just wait. Cause it's going to change in a few weeks anyway.
[00:15:15] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:15:15] Exactly.
[00:15:17] Scott Maderer: [00:15:17] And guess what? They'll, that's what they'll do. It's called human nature. Right?
[00:15:22] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:15:22] Shake their head and smile and say, Oh yeah, we're on board with that. And deep down they know okay, this will last a couple of weeks and we won't have to worry about it.
[00:15:29] Scott Maderer: [00:15:29] I was a school teacher for 16 years. I worked in corporate for 11. And in both of those places, I've seen, the consultant's idea of the week, come in and okay, this is our new focus. And it's yeah, how long is that going to last? And six weeks later, We've got a new focus.
[00:15:45] So it's whatever. It's pretty easy to get get jaded and that kind of attitude. So you're talking about something that actually has to last pass that. What the other thing, I think that was interesting that you said that I wanted to call out is you kept referring [00:16:00] to customer perception.
[00:16:02] And one of the expressions that I've used with folks is to keep in mind that at a very real way, perception is reality. Yeah. In other words, it's all well and good to go, but they're wrong, and they may be, it doesn't matter if that's what they believe.
[00:16:18] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:16:18] Exactly. Exactly. And that's where, a lot of businesses get caught up in thinking they have great customer service because the owner or the managers or the employees, or the spouse does.
[00:16:29] Yeah. We provide great customer service. But when you ask the consumer, when you ask the customer, you ask the patient, the client, whatever the case may be. No, we, you don't provide it. And it there's there's statistics about that. One is, they asked, I think it was 400 businesses, if they provide great customer service and 80% of them said, yes, we do.
[00:16:48] And then when they surveyed the consumers of those same businesses, only 8% of those consumers said those businesses provide superior customer service. So that is a [00:17:00] huge perception difference. And. All that matters is the customer's perception. It's not what the business perceives is great customer service.
[00:17:07] It has to be what the customer does, whether you feel like it's right or wrong, it's not it's right.
[00:17:12] Scott Maderer: [00:17:12] And again, the same thing goes with like your employees. You may think you treat your employees really well again, do they say that you treat them really well? Cause I've been, I've worked for places that.
[00:17:24]They pride themselves on, taking care of their employees and I've seen it when it's true and I've seen it where they say it and it's not really true, and guess what, when you work there for a while, you know, you know, whether it's a, it's a bullet in the mission statement, right.
[00:17:39]Or is this really something that they value and do cause you, you talked about employees and taking care of your employees as part of those foundational principles. Even there, I think perception is reality too.
[00:17:50] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:17:50] Oh, absolutely.
[00:17:51] Scott Maderer: [00:17:51] So let's change gears a little bit. We've been talking a lot about customer service and business and all of that, but.
[00:17:58]From you, [00:18:00] as you look at a personal level, if you could travel into the far future, this is the easy question, and look back on your life. Let's say you've got 150 years into the future and you look back what impact or what do you hope that you've done or changed or impacted in the world?
[00:18:18]Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:18:18] Th there's several pieces to that. From a personal standpoint I want to be known to my family as somebody who loved my family and left a legacy of that where they felt valued and special and important, so they can in turn. Show that to the world and my grandchildren and moved from forward from there.
[00:18:37] So that's first and foremost outside of my faith, I want to be known as a Christian man and a man of faith first and foremost, and then obviously the legacy with my family. From a chiropractic standpoint I, even though I'm past that now, I've always wanted to make sure that, my patients felt valued and that I was there for them, that I cared about them.
[00:18:56]I want them to be healthier and I think I came across, [00:19:00] and so to lead that legacy and, I still have patients that contact me every once in a while and, wish I would go back to practice or, miss me and those types of things and not, obviously that makes me feel good, but I.
[00:19:10]I left an impact on them. And then from my coaching standpoint and my consulting, like my family, I want to leave the legacy that, the principles I'm teaching. I love a quote by Zig Ziglar. He says, if you help enough other people get what they want in their life, you can have whatever you want in your life.
[00:19:29]And I want to help others. Achieved the success that they want in their life that they deserve in their life, that they can that they have goals for in their life through the principles and the knowledge I have from the mistakes I've made, whatever the case may be, where I can help them do that.
[00:19:45]So they can enjoy the success I have and leave that legacy out there too.
[00:19:50] Scott Maderer: [00:19:50] So I wanted to ask a different question as well. You mentioned being a person of faith yourself, how do you think your faith journey has [00:20:00] interacted with this idea of customer service and the strive towards customer service?
[00:20:06]Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:20:06] Hand in hand, I'll just put it that way. Like we talked about when you're treating people, right? Whether it's in the business, setting, the church, setting the family setting there's a little rule in the Bible called the golden rule and basically it, okay.
[00:20:20] That's
[00:20:20] Scott Maderer: [00:20:20] the one that says you got that. He who has the gold makes the rules, right? No, no, no. That's
[00:20:24] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:20:24] a different, that's a little different little that's how some people think that's the golden rule. That's why, that's why I call them
[00:20:29] Scott Maderer: [00:20:29] out. Absolutely. So they're talking about the other
[00:20:31] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:20:31] one, the other one, maybe the others.
[00:20:34] Exactly. The one I'm referring to is do unto others. You'd have them do it to you. And that's basically that's having the service mindset. And that's what I'm champion. I want businesses to turn from being a sales minded so much into service minded and serve. First the trend for customer service is to start calling it customer experience customer spirit experience officers create a customer experience, which there's nothing wrong [00:21:00] with that, but I like to push it back to old school and continue to call it customer service.
[00:21:06] Because I think that's that word serve in there is very vital because that's the basis and really the foundation of great customer services to have that mentality of serving. And from a faith standpoint, that's really what Christianity is about and in, in my eyes and in my heart is to serve others.
[00:21:25] Scott Maderer: [00:21:25] So what's coming up for you next, as you continue on this journey, yourself to living out your call and impacting the world and focusing on customer service.
[00:21:35]Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:21:35] Like you mentioned, I got the the book came out. I'm promoting it define and deliver customers define and deliver exceptional customer service, not just customer service, exceptional customer service.
[00:21:46]Champion in that I have another book in the works this year that I'm excited to to get published. So I'm working on that and getting it moving forward and then just continue my my growth in my business and scale where customer [00:22:00] service is not. Necessarily sexy for that a lot.
[00:22:03]It's not sexy. It's not a, it's not the shiny new object. It's not the new technology. It's not the new marketing strategy. But customer service has been around a long time. The principles have been around a long time. There are some huge businesses that have been around a long time and that are some of the biggest businesses in the world that started with the foundation of great customer service.
[00:22:25] So yeah. It may not be sexy. It may not be the new shiny object. It may not be the new tech, but it is powerful if you'll grasp onto it. If you'll lay it down as a foundation principle for your business and a guarantee, really there's no downside to improving customer service. And I guarantee that you're going to grow and profit because of having that attitude of great service in a business.
[00:22:49] Well, if you stop
[00:22:50] Scott Maderer: [00:22:50] and think about it for a moment that. Most businesses will tell you that one of their number one sources of great customers is their current customers, referrals or word of mouth [00:23:00] or whatever. And when it comes to it, word of mouth advertising is about the cheapest form of advertising you can do.
[00:23:07] Absolutely. It's pretty, pretty low cost. Plus. Getting a new customer is always more expensive than keeping your old customer. That's also a universal statement of truth. Exactly. So if you do good customer service, you're more likely to keep your current customers. So that's yeah, it's basically everything that it does lowers costs, even if it costs you something to provide the good customer service.
[00:23:32] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:23:32] Exactly. And that's good customer service, great customer service, exceptional customer service. That's called the new advertising. For what you just explained there. And I, there's a quote I failed to mention or remember the name of the gentleman who said this, but he said that marketing is the price you pay for bad customer service.
[00:23:54] Okay. So I'm not totally gets marketing, but businesses lose sight of, a [00:24:00] business purpose is to get a customer, a, keep a customer and to make a profit, very simplistically. A lot of businesses is just focused on getting a customer and making a profit and lose that, trying to keep those customers.
[00:24:11]And that's really what good customer is about customer service is about it's keeping customers in the business and that's really where exponential growth and profits come from is by keeping those current customers like you just mentioned.
[00:24:23] Scott Maderer: [00:24:23] Yeah. Yeah. Because new customers keep coming in, but if you keep the ones you've already got, you don't have that churn factor.
[00:24:29] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:24:29] Exactly.
[00:24:31] Scott Maderer: [00:24:31] So you can follow Dr. Kelly Henry over on LinkedIn. He's Dr. Kelly Henry or find him on his website is Dr. Kelly henry.com. He's also active on Instagram, under Dr. Kelly Henry. All of course have links to all of these over in the show notes as well. Kelly, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?
[00:24:51] Dr. Kelly Henry: [00:24:51] No, I appreciate your time. Again, you can find the book to find it, deliver exceptional customer service on my website. It's on Amazon. It's really anywhere you can find books, [00:25:00] audible, Kindle, any of those appropriate platforms. Look forward. It's very simple, easy read. It's not a very long book but it's.
[00:25:09] The principles are simple and easy, but extremely effective. And that's what I want you to get from the book. Let's not make this difficult. Let's not make this hard. Let's just take these principles, be consistent with them and then watch what happens.
[00:25:31] Scott Maderer: [00:25:31] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.
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