Attendees at the Professional Landcare Network’s (PLANET) annual Specialty Symposium took away tips and professional connections to “make the invisible visible” – one of the essential messages from keynote speaker Chuck Zamora’s address, “If the Customer Wins, You Can’t Lose.” The Symposium, which 120 contractors attended, took place in Milwaukee on August 4-6.
“It’s all about the invisibles,” Zamora reiterated during his customer service-focused presentation. He outlined some intangible qualities that all business owners should strive for in their relationships. Trust. Credibility. Flexibility. Sustainability. Honesty. Reliability. Knowledge. Responsibility. “If you drive your business down the road of these things, you’re going to be streets ahead of other people,” he said.
Zamora, whose customer service philosophy hinges on his ACME principle ("Always Create a Memorable Experience"), challenged the audience to describe in eight words or less what business they’re in. Attendees came up with variations of “landscape maintenance, management, design/build and lawn care services.” Some said they create outdoor living spaces or improve environments.
Zamora contested they all were wrong. “You’re in the people business,” he yelled. “There’s a differentiation between the industry you’re in and the business you’re in,” he said. “It’s all about people. It isn’t about anything else. Everybody needs to sell themselves and their company – that’s a big piece of making their business work. You’re in the business of selling.”
Next, Zamora asked the audience members to draw a diagram of their companies’ structures. Most people, Zamora said, drew pyramids with the president or CEO at the top, and the front-line staff at the bottom.
“Is the word ‘customers’ physically written down on your diagram?” Zamora asked. Only seven out of more than 100 attendees raised their hands.
“That tells me that you don't see customers as a separate entity to your corporate structure. Is the customer a part of your organization, or are they not? Until you start to get a picture that they’re a part of your organization and not someone that you deal with and then move on, you’re never going to have a customer-driven organization.”
Zamora told contractors to envision their companies as targets with customers in the bull’s eye, front-line staff as the next inner-most ring, and supervisors, managers and executives emanating out from there. “The closer you are to the center, the more important you are. The farther away you are, the more responsibility, authority and accountability one has.”
Although front-line staff members typically aren’t thought of as “highly important,” Zamora said they should be thought of as such because they touch the customer on a daily basis. “Whatever you tell the front-line staff to deliver to customers, you better deliver to them. You can’t have one set of rules for how you treat customers and deal with internal people differently.”
Zamora described an ideal situation for any company: having created an environment where the opposition can’t compete. There’s one secret to doing so, Zamora said. The answer: People.
“The only sustainable competitive advantage you can have is your people. Why? Your competition can’t duplicate them.
“Do you want to build great customer service? Remember this: work that’s fun gets done,” Zamora said. “If you want to have fun, not only internally but with your clients, it’s when your organization is focused on a goal, united as a team and nurtured by the leaders. When most organizations fail is when the leaders fail to nurture their people.”
