What Dancing Taught Me About Customer Service (positive disruption by: Tom Martin | New Orleans based Social Media Consultant)

A few weeks ago I attended my daughter's state dance competition and I found a number of similarities between a dance team and customer service team.

First, her team practice all year for one shot. There are no second downs or losers bracket. You either nail it or you don't. They only compete a few times a year but at each competition it is the same. One dance. All or nothing. Sort of like customer service. You practice, train and teach for that one moment when your team has a chance to deliver a great customer experience or at least recover from a bad one. But ask yourself, does your team approach it like my daughter's team approaches competition? Does your team tackle each opportunity as a "no second down" proposition or do they think, "we can always make it up to them." Seems to me this simple change of point of view would translate into a huge change in the customer experience.

Beyond the mental approach, another thing a team dance competition drives home is that every action by every player matters. Every girl on the team may nail it but if just one falls- well that could be the difference between winning and losing. Again, because you only get one shot everyone has to be perfect. In this particular competition they lost first or second place (can't remember) by just one point. One point on a 20 girl, 3 minute dance routine. Wow. But then, that's just like customer service. I can have a great waiter but if the food comes out undercooked or cold, bam! my experience just lost a few points. A dance team is an ecosystem of choreographed movements, which is just like customer service. The great experiences are little more than properly timed and choreographed movements that result in first place finish for your brand.

And lastly, a couple of the routines drove home a key point we all forget: That the little things make all the difference. You see this one team had a cool routine but their costumes were bland and while it shouldn't have, it really made the routine less impresive. A couple of dances later, another team whose costumes actually accentuated the choreography via the color scheme [I know I should have taken pictures] and addition of sequins in certain areas of their costumes that picked up the light in just the right way. Again, their routine was quite good but probably not that much better than the first team -- but with those costumes, it just looked so much more energetic and polished. I once visited a prospective hotel client and as I sat in the lobby waiting for the GM, I noticed something. Every single employee that walked by said hello or good morning and smiled at me. Every single one of them and no I was not sitting at a Ritz. It was a standard, every day brand hotel chain. That was almost 8 years ago and I can still picture it like it was yesterday. It was a simple, little thing that made a huge impact on my experience.

As we move forward and advertising continues to lose its power to create and maintain brand impressions, customer service will no doubt become a bigger and bigger player in your marketing efforts. Yes, I do see customer service as marketing. So ask yourself, if you had to compete for Gold, could you win? Is your choreography up to snuff? And are the little things like your uniform enhancing or detracting from that experience?

Become a Fan

positive disruption by: Tom Martin | New Orleans based Social Media Consultant