Extra-Legendary Customer Service (::XLS:: 101): My Yale Experience, By Segun Mojeed

 It was a tough battle this week deciding, first, on what to write about, yet I must decide. And when it was eventually decided that I share this unique customer experience, the second challenge arose: crafting a short manageable title. That is one good thing about decisions, it is not about being good or bad, it is about taking decisions because a no decision is the worst decision. So, I decided. That’s why you are reading me right now.

This week, I’m doing a hybrid of two, or may be three People Matters for your reading pleasure. The first is an introduction to a training series we call Extra-Legendary Customer Service (XLS!). This would be followed by a couple of experiences worthy to be called extra-legendary.

XLS! is a training module which contents were inspired by a series of customer experiences we have had, and still having, ranging from outstanding to excellent, to good, to not-so-good, and to outright ugly and huge service errors. On the other hand, this course title was inspired by the cover of Ken Blanchard’s book which he co-authored with Katty Cuff and Vicki Hasley: Legendary Service: The Key Is to Care. I said ‘cover’ because I have not really read the book. I only browsed through one of the copies in our library, still waiting to be thoroughly digested. Though while browing through, I saw that C.A.R.E is an acronym for committed, attentive, responsive, and empowered. Diverse customer experiences globally got us thinking, and after a brainstorming session, the faculty got enough instances and reasons to elevate good and acceptable customer service to the level of extra-legendary. Extra-legendary customer service is that seven-star customer service performance that keeps your customers happy and coming back. And this training has a curriculum with well researched nuggets for your offering to hit the bull’s eye.

A legend is a story told over and over again, and each time it is told, it sets the adrenalin pumping, and turning the hearer’s body into a goose pimples- invested spectacle owing to its outstanding and impactful influence in the lives of the people and/or the learning therefrom. Checking on Google, it defines legend as “a non-historical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical”. That’s okay except that in the realm of customer service, legends are for real – providing real services to real people in extra-legendary ways and these people go to town mouthing your good deeds thereby inviting more people to your business. Yes! The stories are real and contemporary, recipients of extra-legendary treatment become advocates of your products and services. This is the cheapest way known to the human race for making good sales and improving the revenue base.

‘…In the realm of customer service, legends are for real – providing real services to real people in extra-legendary ways and these people go to town mouthing your good deeds thereby inviting more people to your business’

When legendary has extra as a prefix, the intended impact of such a service is taken notches higher. We are privileged to have done this training for a few of our blue chip clients which include Guaranty Trust Bank and SystemSpecs Limited. In such classes, we share real life, real time and practical customer service experiences worthy to be called extra-legendary, and we take delegates through a step-by-step, precept-upon-precept route to becoming ‘Great XLS! Champions’. Permit me to reiterate and rephrase a popular saying here and now which says: If a good and legendary service is giving (a little) more than your customers expect; then an extra-legendary customer service is enjoying giving far more than your customers expect from you. Extra-legendary could be likened to the word ‘extraterrestrial’. It is a kind of out-of-this-world action or feeling! It is beyond best, beyond great, and beyond legendary to Extra-Legendary! It encourages the possibility of raising the bar always in your customer service charter.

It was Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, who once wrote that “the goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just best but legendary”. An ingrained attitude of givers of extra-legendary customer service is enjoy! Enjoying what they do is a constant source of inspiration and energy for them. They have an outward mind-set believing the customer is king hence they treat everyone as a king at every customer touch point even as a traffic warden. I celebrate the policewoman traffic officer at the St. Agnes/Our Lady junction on Herbert Macaulay Way. She is joy to behold on duty. Also, I have visited a restaurant on a university campus in Lagos a couple of times where everyone served is greeted by the server with a beautiful genuine smile followed by an equally heart-warming salutation, enjoy!

One of my recent and indellible customer service encounters that would pass the extra-legendary test over and over is my Yale SOM experience last August. Yale University is an Ivy League school founded in 1701, and its School of Management, Yale SOM for short, is one of the best in the world for executive education, staying top of the league with Harvard and the rest. I was privileged to have been nominated by our firm, BezaleelConsulting for an executive education at Yale aptly titled “Foundations of Management Excellence”. The curriculum was the outcome of an in-depth research spanning months, a collaborative effort between ATD – Association for Talent Development, an Ivy League global conglomeration of talent development professionals I’m pleased to be part of, and the Columbia University’s Business School. Eight hundred and forty-seven (847) talent development professionals participated in this research with the main purpose of identifying crucial skills that make a winning manager.

They succeeded in identifying and isolating five key skills and factors responsible for management and leadership excellence which they summed up in the acronym A.C.C.E.L. We shall now leave further discussion on this subject to later editions of this column. Suffice now to just say that the quality of this outcome and the thoroughness of the process must have arguably swayed the Yale University School of Management to agree to run their findings as an Executive Education programme at its main campus in New Haven, Connecticut.

The customer service element of this programme kicked off in earnest right from the time I got the joining instruction mail with pre-conference resources from the programme coordinator. It was explicit, simple and direct containing lodging and travels options. No one was left in doubt as to the quality time awaiting us in class. Though I didn’t take the University’s travelling option because my nephew, Ayo Lawanson, a Yale alumnus, provided me with a better option, and as I arrived at the hotel/registration desk, it was as if they have known me forever. Even when my name temporarily disappeared from the reservation list, the hotel recovered brilliantly from this service error and did everything possible to erase that minor glitch and made my stay memorable.

Classes were held in conducive lecture theatres with lovely technology at Yale SOM. Our break out sessions were recorded for us to playback and get feedback. Courtesy was the middle name of all the University officials we came in contact with from the security personnel to janitors, and to Professors. A Nigerian student, Miss. Fayemi, a niece of Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the Ekiti State Governor-elect, was our tour guide of the Yale campus. Beauty and brain rolled together in one package.

As we rounded off early on the last day of the programme and with the celebratory back slapping, last-minute felicitations, exchange of complimentary cards, signing of autographs among delegates and professors, I forgot something I had all through the week planned to do – to come back to Nigeria with my Yale branded tent-card name plate. We were already out of the business school facility on our way back to the hotel to go have a short nap and get prepared for the Commencement Ceremony that would take place later that evening. It was now too late, or so I thought. Gone is the Yale branded name tag. The bus was here and I couldn’t delay the bus because of a name tag. Apart from my Yale certificate, I would have loved so much to display my name tag on my desk back at work. The appellation “an alumnus of the prestigious Yale…” must be physically evidenced in the office daily. My thoughts were still running helter skelter as the bus meandered through the streets of New Haven when suddenly I noticed our programme coordinators, Ms. Gypsy Garcia of Yale and my good friend, Ryan Changcoco of ATD seated a few seats away from where I sat.

I sprang to my feet to go and tell Ms. Garcia what was troubling me and to see what can be done. By extension, I quickly shared it also with Ryan. To my relief, Gypsy assured me there is nothing to worry about and that I should confirm my postal address with her and she would get my tent-card name tag delivered to me by courier in the coming weeks. Ha ha! Did I really believe her? To be sincere, judging by the way she took charge of delegates from our first encounter, I believed her. Gypsy is an unassuming young lady who must have made up her mind to excel in all she does. She did not just come as a programme coordinator but also as a human resource manager with multicultural skill sets in handling a global community of professionals and as a customer service executive. She was humble, professional and approachable.

As for Ryan, we hit it off straight away from the onset. It was friends at first sight. I remember calling him when my name was not found on the reservation list with special delegates’ freebies. He apologised profusely on the phone and told me to hang in there and that he was on his way. He spoke with the hotel, they attended to me and he still showed up almost immediately. It took him about 48 hours later to find me the welcome souvenir which was exhausted just before my arrival. He promised following up on Gypsy to ensure this ‘name tag’ service covenant is not broken.

Beloved, a few weeks later, my Yale branded tent-card name tag arrived on my desk in Lagos, Nigeria. It didn’t come by surface mail, it was couriered with International Priority stamped on it by America’s darling courier company, in a well packaged, very neat thick card envelope. It came intact, without wrinkle or stain. Trust me, the cost of the courier alone far outweighs the cost of producing the content, but a promise is a promise, it is a sign of integrity, doing what we say we would do thereby making your customer happy. The Yale/ATD team gave me and may be the entire class of ACCEL 2017 an extra-legendary customer service experience. If you visit my office today, the tent card is on my desk. It actually replaced an old aluminium name plate I have had for years. That’s XLS! for you.

Epilogue:

Let’s wrap this up with celebrations. I’ll like to celebrate Master Israel Galadima, the Borno State indegene and ex-student of Faith Academy in Ogun State who ‘walloped JAMB’, scoring 364 marks out of a possible 400. What else can I say? Dear Israel, I pray that the good Lord will keep elevating you. Your name will keep speaking for you. In a few years from now, you’ll sit as part of decision making authorities in this land in Jesus name. I celebrate you, your parents, HE the Governor of Borno State, your teachers at Faith Academy, our daughter’s alma mater, and Ogun, my darling state.

I would like to also humbly felicitate with our daddy, Rev. Gabriel O. Farombi, the General Overseer Emeritus of the Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria, who celebrated his eightieth birthday last Sunday. Daddy, your Christo-centric life and humility is an inspiration to us. With long life, the Lord will satisfy you in all-round prosperity and you’ll continue to bear fruits even in your old age, sir (Psalm 92:14) in Jesus name, Amen.

Acknowledgement/Sources of Resources for this article:

1. Clip arts and snippets from Google and from the Internet to drive home the points.
2. A compendium of over 25 years of manuscripts of my thesis and lecture series in Talent Management and People Matters (unpublished yet).
3. BezaleelConsulting Group Library bezaleelconsultingrw.com
4. Yale/ATD ACCEL Foundations of Management Excellence Programme at the Yale School of Management, Pioneering Class of 2017