Elevating Customer Experiences: Dan Gingiss and Sam Klein Share Winning Strategies

INTRO/OUTRO [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the cleaning in motion show, a podcast interviewing successful cleaning business owners to hear what they're doing that works and what they've tried that's failed, all to help you grow your business. And now on to the show.

Samuel Klein [00:00:25]:
So welcome to the Cleaning in Motion Show, the premier podcast for commercial cleaning and facility management professionals. I'm Samuel Klein, your host. And today, we're honored to have Dan Gingiss as a distinguished keynote speaker and customer consulting joining us in our podcast. Dan is a real pioneer when it comes to creating awesome customer experience that gets people talking. He's also the author of acclaimed books like The Experience Maker and Winning at Social Customer Care. Dan knows, how to make Businesses stands out, and we're gonna talk a lot about that today. He's been recognized as one of the top customer service and has shared his insights in numerous platforms, so make sure to, find him online. Dan will share a little bit about his platform.

Samuel Klein [00:01:16]:
And today, we have done in the podcast so we can learn about how we can create unforgettable customer experience For clients, for employees. So get ready to have an amazing amazing session. So thank you, Dan, for joining us today. Welcome to the Cleaning in Motion show. I appreciate to have you here. And how are you today?

Dan Gingiss [00:01:42]:
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited for this conversation.

Samuel Klein [00:01:48]:
So, Dan, tell us a little bit, About you, who is Dan? And, how did you end up in this, industry? And and how do you become An experienced maker or a customer experience consultant.

Dan Gingiss [00:02:04]:
Sure. So I spent about 20 years in corporate America, mostly as a marketer. Grew up in direct mail and then, got into digital marketing, Email, SEO, social media, all of it. And, I worked at some pretty big companies, that most people have heard of, Discover Card, Humana, McDonald's, and eventually got tired of the corporate thing and, decided that I wanted to try something on my own. And that, also was in parallel with me shifting from marketing to customer experience. As it turns out, they have a lot in common, and they overlap quite a bit. And so today, I like to say that I sit at the intersection of marketing and customer experience because I believe that a great experience is the best marketing strategy. So if you wanna spend less money on having to do all of the traditional marketing things, you can create a better experience for your customers, have them start talking about you.

Dan Gingiss [00:03:04]:
And I, you know, I don't have to know a whole lot about your industry to know that Like many, many other businesses, the way that we grow is through referrals and and good references and positive reviews. And so the more that we can get people talking about us in a positive way, the faster we can grow.

Samuel Klein [00:03:23]:
There you go. So I I'm gonna quote you in My webinars, the best experience, is the best marketing strategy, and I cannot agree more. So let's, dive deep in in into the meaning of that and how can we implement and hopefully get some actionable tips, And and and ideas to spark some creativity to our listeners. So, let let's start then. If you can share a little bit in your view, What are the key elements to creating a a remarkable customer experience?

Dan Gingiss [00:03:57]:
So, I've developed a A methodology that I call WISER, because I want, clients and audiences to be wiser than the competition when it comes to customer experience. And there's really 5 steps that spell out WISER. And you don't have to use every one of them. It's it's sort of It's one of these things where you could figure out what works best for your business, but the more of them that you use, the more unique your experience is gonna be. So the w stands for witty, which is really about having fun and showing personality. And I know what people are already saying. Oh, but we're in the commercial cleaning business. That's not fun.

Dan Gingiss [00:04:38]:
That's a boring business. It doesn't no business has to be boring. It it depends on how we're gonna market it. Right? And, and what happens often is we all regress to a meme. So every business starts marketing themselves in a similar way. Then we end up competing on things like price, which is never what you wanna be doing because that's a losing game, Or you try to compete on product or service, which is also difficult because it's so copyable. Think about, Uber and Lyft. Right? Uber came out.

Dan Gingiss [00:05:09]:
It was, You know, this massive change to an industry that completely blows up the taxi industry, but then Lyft comes out. And now today, it's difficult to tell when you're in a car, whether you're in an Uber or a Lyft, and you're probably in both. And that's how undistinguishable they are. And so witty is about using language to our advantage, being willing to be not funny, but fun, and put a smile on people's faces. Then we have immersive. And what immersive is about is Creating the kinds of experiences that people really feel in their bones. And the way that we do that is either appealing to 1 of the 5 senses or appealing to people's emotions. I understand that commercial cleaning business may not be an emotional business.

Dan Gingiss [00:05:56]:
That's okay. But as I start thinking about it, I immediately come to things that definitely hit on the senses. I I think about smells. I think about, the the sense of feel, and even and even, the sense of sight. Right? Does something look clean? Right. That is going to make a big difference in how I perceive the service. S is about being shareable. And this is really looking for those moments where and we've all had this as consumers.

Dan Gingiss [00:06:23]:
We all pull out our phone at a certain point, and we wanna take a picture or a video of something Because something's happening that we wanna remember. And it doesn't matter whether we're gonna share that with a 1000000 followers on social media Or we're just gonna share it with friends and family and coworkers. The point is we're gonna share it, and we're gonna share it along with some positive Commentary about what's happening and presumably the the the company that made it happen. And so we look for these little opportunities. And, again, in your industry, I I, I love to take other industries and apply it. So think about you've probably seen on social media, I'm in the airline industry where Sometimes in 1st class, the, the flight attendant will write a handwritten note on a napkin. You know, thank you For flying, American Airlines and for being our loyal customer. Right? And people go crazy over it because they think it's so personalized, and they can't believe that somebody wrote them a personal note.

Dan Gingiss [00:07:21]:
That didn't cost them any money. It didn't take them any time, But that's something that you could do in the commercial cleaning industry. Right? Is it if you had the if you had the right client or you knew where the client's desk was or whatever it was, You could leave a personal note and create that that connection, and that becomes a shareable moment because that's gonna be very unexpected. Extraordinary is the e, and extraordinary just means if we look at the definition, it just means better than ordinary. And the good news is in almost every industry, your competition is ordinary. So you just have to be a little bit better than them in order to stand out. The problem, as I said, is most often we regress to the mean and everybody looks the same. And so one of the reasons why I suggest that people look at other industries is if all you ever do is look at your direct competition, you're almost guaranteeing that you can't be innovative.

Dan Gingiss [00:08:14]:
Because if you look at your direct competitor and you say, boy, company a b c is doing this really cool thing. We should copy them. And then you copy them, You're not innovative. You're just a copycat. Right? And so we we have to look outside of our industry and say, what can we do that other industries are having success at so that we can stand out and be extraordinary. And then finally, the r in WISER is about being responsive. And responsive comes in a multiple in in a lot of different ways. Responsive could be simply listening to customers and and taking their feedback, positive, negative, or other.

Dan Gingiss [00:08:51]:
But it's also making sure that when they start talking about you and start sharing, experiences and start referring you, that you make sure that you have a response mechanism. Right? If you referred me for a keynote speech And I got the job and I never came back and thanked you, then you're probably not gonna refer me again. Right? But so often, we forget that to close that loop And say, hey, you know, this person just helped me out. I'm gonna go back and thank them and recognize them. And what happens even in in social media is Social media became the 1st marketing channel where people could have a relationship with brands. They could have a a two way conversation, And oftentimes, that two way conversation's positive. And if you think about it, nobody ever called a a call center to say, I just call in to tell you that we're doing you were doing a really great job, but they do do that on social media. And oftentimes, brands ignore it, And it's such a lost opportunity.

Dan Gingiss [00:09:52]:
So the r part is about being responsive. And it's not only to that 1 customer, but it shows other customers that you're responsive as well.

Samuel Klein [00:10:00]:
No. Amazing. There is a lot to it to unpack there. You know? I think, If, and by the way, Dana, if, you're gonna plug in your book because I know you talk about, why is This methodology, I guess, and and and you go deep into that, by all means, I would love for you to talk more about your booking in a second. But I think, in this world of, facility management, where There is so many competitors in each market and where the decision maker is, which usually it it's an office manager, a facility manager. It's so overwhelmed with, problems, and it's always dealing with this is dirty. The light doesn't work. They they always have to Big, things now, and it's a very stressful environment.

Samuel Klein [00:10:54]:
It's so easy to be a little bit different and just add, You know, that that piece of of, of, of witty of of of the wiser component of of, customer experience to To stand out from the ground, you know, to give that sense of, okay, wow. This this person care. We are all obsessed of of getting new clients. Very few people are obsessed on Retaining, retention and and and, caring about their customers. You know? And sometimes we've been with customers for years, and and we just forget about about them, about, how can we make their life You're in, we're doing an amazing job, and that's great. But, again, just by adding maybe, as you said, like a personalized note, a a chocolate in their desk, something that you don't have to break the bank. It will stand out, and it will go a long way and to a point where you can Star, a word-of-mouth, kind of, marketing experience. And also, you can create that Extraordinary moment now where where people potentially can record a video.

Samuel Klein [00:12:03]:
So I I think, There is a lot there in in, the experience has to start within the company, you know, with the culture, I guess. And I know you also I listened to some of your your podcast and and videos that you have online, and and You talk about experience also within the company and and and with the employees. So let's start there and and let's try to to make a plan on how can a cost a a company, can implement some kind of Amazing customer experience, in in their culture and and and implemented, to the way that they can, Again, distribute to their clients and and and be part of of that company. You know? So if you don't mind talk, like, Where do we start? Like, I am a cleaning company. I have a crew of, I don't know, a 100 cleaners. I have a 100 clients. I leave the day to day, 1,000 miles per hour. I have to deal with all the complaints of of, Customers.

Samuel Klein [00:13:12]:
I have to get new customers, but I need to stand out from the competitors. Like, where do I start?

Dan Gingiss [00:13:19]:
Well, you hit the nail on the head that one of the first places to start is to focus on your existing customers, versus only being focused on new customers. I think as it pertains to employees, the word I like to use is empowerment. If we can empower our employees To do what's right for our customers and know, for example, that they're never gonna get in trouble if they do something to help a customer. That's a really good start to building a customer centric culture. Now we might go back to them and say, look. Next time you do this, I'd rather you don't spend as much money, or I'd rather that you do it a different way, but you're never gonna get in trouble for helping out a customer. And when you start to empower employees, then what happens you mentioned the the light bulb. Right? Wouldn't it be awesome if When one of the cleaners goes into the building, that they notice proactively that the light bulb is out, and they fix the light bulb before the customer even asks.

Dan Gingiss [00:14:19]:
Now imagine that customer who's been sitting in their office. They've been noticing this light bulb out for however long it's Been out, and it's annoying them, but they didn't have time to tell anybody. And then all of a sudden, they show up to work and the light bulb's fixed. That makes them happy. Right? You took a you took you solved a problem for them and you made it so they didn't even have to do anything. It just happened. It was magic. Right? But if we don't have employees that are looking for those kinds of things and that feel empowered, hey, I'm just here to clean, But I'm allowed to replace a light bulb if that's what it takes because I've noticed that the light bulb is out, and I'm gonna replace the light bulb, and And nobody's gonna get mad at me for using a light bulb, you know, whatever the light bulb costs, because I'm doing it in the spirit of helping a customer.

Dan Gingiss [00:15:07]:
Once you have that empowerment, then employees will find ways, to, to proactively provide service or to look for those little extras. And, again, one of the things I I know because I've I've spoken with your industry before. I know probably one of the somebody some skeptic is listening right now, And they're saying, yeah. But here's the problem. This is a b to b business. And so you're talking about, you know, you're you're talking about from the perspective of a consumer. And I've heard this, I've heard this many, many times. And besides from working from a large consumer companies, I have also worked with a lot of b to b's.

Dan Gingiss [00:15:46]:
And what I have found over time is that b to b's are not as different from b to c's as they think they are. And here's the reason. Your buyer, whether it's a single person or a committee of people, bunch of executives, whatever, Those people are consumers in their real lives. And the reality about how business gets done, and this may not be fair, you may not like this, is that if your buyer yesterday went out to dinner with his or her significant other and had an amazing experience and the service was great and the Environment was amazing. The food was impeccable. Then the next day, when they're going to buy some service like a cleaning service, They're expecting a similar experience. It's like once you shop on Amazon and you see how fast it is and how quickly you can get the product, Then you expect that at every ecommerce site. This is how our brains work, and so we take our consumer experiences and we apply them to work.

Dan Gingiss [00:16:46]:
We wanna work with businesses that are easy to do business with, that are fast, that are responsive, that treat us well, that appreciate us just like when we're consumers. And so I think very often, b to b companies hide behind the fact that they're selling to a business, And they say, well, this stuff doesn't apply. And I say, well, the only way it doesn't apply is if you're not selling to human beings. Right? Because if you're selling to humans, those are consumers in their real lives, and we have to be aware of those kind of things. So Sometimes it is a committee, and and it isn't just 1 person's desk or 1 buyer or 1 building manager. It's a whole bunch of people. That's okay. We can still use the same techniques to make sure that those people know that they're valued, that we appreciate their business, that, We don't take it for granted because the second you take it for granted, your competitor comes in, they undercut you, and now you've lost the business.

Samuel Klein [00:17:45]:
So in, your opinion, how important is to get the client feedback in our case? No? Like, Every time that we do a cleaning and sometimes, you do cleaning every day, you know, and from Monday to to Sunday, That I guess on a weekly basis or regularly, you should get feedback, and and every cleaning company knows these kind of things. But what do you do with that feedback to turn it into, again, an experience of working with you and your company?

Dan Gingiss [00:18:16]:
So customer feedback is crucial and it should be continuous. You don't have to ask somebody every time you clean if you're cleaning on a daily basis, But it should be continuous feedback. There's 3 steps to feedback, and I will tell you, spoiler alert, most companies only do step 1 and step 2. Step 1 is collecting feedback. You have to have a mechanism for your customers to give you feedback, and that can be either proactive or reactive. Proactive means at any time, they can go to your website or go to your mobile app or text you or whatever it is or hit a QR code, and they can give you feedback when they want to. Reactive is you send them a survey and you ask them for feedback. That's step number 1.

Dan Gingiss [00:18:58]:
Most companies do that pretty well, if not too much. The 2nd step is analyzing the feedback. Okay. So this is now while we've got a 100 surveys that we filled out, What have we learned from it? And, you know, now with technology and AI, this has become a whole lot easier because we've got computers that we can feed lots of data into, And they can spit out, some of the the the high points so that we don't have to calculate this all ourselves. When we analyze, we wanna analyze both quantitatively and qualitatively. So the quantitative might be something like an NPS score, a net promoter score. And that's gonna be a number, and it's gonna tell you how you're doing at a moment in time. But it's not necessarily gonna tell you why.

Dan Gingiss [00:19:44]:
And most companies that track NPS, when NPS goes up, they celebrate. They high five each other. They pat each other on the back. And when NPS goes down, they blame the weather. They blame COVID. They blame something. And the truth is they don't really know why it's going up or down, Which is why we need the qualitative analysis as well. That's taking the words that people are saying and figuring out what the consistent topics are.

Dan Gingiss [00:20:11]:
So if people continue to talk about broken light bulbs or or light bulbs that are out, we that surfaces to the top and we say, okay. This is something we need to do better training on or or what have you, which gets us to the 3rd piece, which is where most people fall down. So most companies do number 1 and 2. They collect the feedback and they analyze the feedback. The problem is they usually stop there by putting a report together to management that says, okay. Here's our feedback. The thing is is that management doesn't need another report. They got plenty of reports on their desk.

Dan Gingiss [00:20:43]:
What they need is action, And that's step 3, which is, okay, what are we going to do about it now that we've gotten this feedback and we've analyzed it and we know what the issues are? What are we gonna do about it? And when we take action, we gotta look at 2 things. What are the things that we're doing really well The people are complimenting on us on that we should do more of. So if you start leaving chocolates on people's desks and they start commenting on it, Then you know you're on to something. Do more of that. And then what are people complaining about and consistently complaining about? Not just a bad apple, but Multiple people are saying there's too many light bulbs out. Okay. Now this is something we need to take action on. We need to create some new training.

Dan Gingiss [00:21:28]:
We need to make sure that our Cleaners have light bulbs in their, you know, in their carts or whatever it is so that they have the the capability and that they're empowered to fix those problems. If we never get to step 3 in the action, then the whole point of taking the feedback and analyzing it has been wasted.

Samuel Klein [00:21:46]:
No. I I agree, and I I think you hit the nail. Because including myself, we sometimes take the feedback. We have a couple of meetings with the team to see how we can improve. We maybe change one thing here or there, but but it's Not like a very conscious. No. It's just like a part of the routine. Like, you take feedback.

Samuel Klein [00:22:07]:
Okay. If someone complains that You're not cleaning the right way or or the window wasn't clean enough, so you clean it and and that's it, and you move on. If you can turn that feedback into Very actionable steps that will make a difference, you know, in the customer's eyes, and they will notice that You took that feedback seriously, then I think, that's where where you start creating that experience as well.

Dan Gingiss [00:22:37]:
Well and also, I I wanna point out, you can track this and you can actually track the value to your company. So let me give you an example when I was at Discover Card. I was, managing the website and all of the digital experience, And we noticed something that was causing a problem for a certain subsection of customers on the website. The reason we knew there was a problem was the customer service team came to us and said, we're getting 400 calls a month about this problem on the website. Can you please fix it? So my team went, and we fixed it. And we took I created what I call the promotion chart Because if you can show this to your CEO, you're gonna get promoted. We looked at this chart that showed 400 calls a month. And then when we made the fix, the chart went like this.

Dan Gingiss [00:23:29]:
It went down to 0 calls a month. Now if you know what you should know, how much does a call cost? Usually, it's between $7.10 a customer service call multiplied by 400 calls, multiplied by 12 months out of the year, We've just saved the company a whole lot of money. So let's keep using that light bulb example. How many complaints are you receiving about light bulbs? What is the process that has that that has to go through? Maybe they're calling a service number. That is cost. Then you have to send out a new person, not just the cleaning person, but a second person to go fix the light bulb. You're creating cost within your whole process that if you were just proactive in the 1st place, You could eliminate all of that cost. Plus, you have happier and more satisfied customers, so you can start measuring things like retention rate.

Dan Gingiss [00:24:19]:
Hey. If we start proactively replacing, light bulbs, can we actually track how many customers stay with us versus leave every year? And is that something that affects that number? So we don't just do this because we think it's a a nice thing to do. We do it because it's a competitive advantage that keeps our business growing. And I I I think that's worth emphasizing because a lot of people look at customer Experience is sort of a soft skill, a nice to have, and I argue that it is not at all soft or nice to have. It is imperative Because if you're not doing it, someone else is going to do it. And, again, we all know when we lose a customer to a a competitor, It's a double loss because we've lost it, our competitor has gained it, and now we gotta go out and find a new customer. And so we're just adding tons of cost and weight to our process and to our business when we could be relieving all.

Samuel Klein [00:25:20]:
Yeah. No. I again, there there is, like, customer experience can, impact the the not only The sales cycle, you know, before you get the client, but also everything that comes after that involve, cost, They involve, customer retention. So what I I wanna talk a little bit to to create a little bit more awareness is all these Important key business metrics, KPIs that can be impacted by a good or bad experience, you know, that that you provide the customer. So if you provide an amazing experience, again, you leave those, chocolates. You do an amazing job. You do And we didn't know you you go the extra mile without breaking the bank. That's gonna have a direct impact in retention.

Samuel Klein [00:26:10]:
You know? And, That client should stay with you for a long time because, again, in our industry, there is there is no nobody doing those kind of things. So what other type of metrics and and you mentioned a a few, you know, like cost of acquiring new customers, cost of acquisition. But what other metrics can we notice or or pay attention Just by implementing a a customer experience plan.

Dan Gingiss [00:26:43]:
Yeah. So I like to say that when You are great at customer experience. You get more customers who spend more, stay longer, And tell others. And those are really the metrics. More customers because you start to gain of having a great experience, and so people want to do business with companies like that. This is why we spend so much time looking at ratings and reviews online is we wanna make sure the company that we're doing business with is a company that's worth doing business with. Ones that spend more. So depending on what your company does and and the the various products and services, if they're happy with one thing, they're much more likely to buy something else from you.

Dan Gingiss [00:27:26]:
Right? And so, we can get an average spend per customer to increase as well. They stay longer. You mentioned this is that, you know, if we're looking at things like retention rate, we can also measure tenure. So one of the interesting things about Discover Card, which is you probably know is one of the smaller Credit card companies in the US. But what it distinguishes itself on is service. So it's never gonna be the cheapest. It's never gonna give you the best Interest rate are the highest rewards because it can't compete against the biggest banks, but it can have the best service. Now what a lot of people don't know is that Discover Cardholders have the longest average tenure of any credit card in the United States.

Dan Gingiss [00:28:07]:
Wow. That's a great metric to track Because we now know that every time we bring on a new customer, they're gonna stay a really long time. And then The 3rd part is telling others, and we can track that as well. How many referrals are we getting from existing clients? And and a lot of companies have programs around this. Maybe you incent a a company to make a referral. May you know, maybe you give them, Some some monetary reason for doing it or what have you. But also, if you're just asking people, let's say that a new client, or a new prospect approaches you. This happens in my business too.

Dan Gingiss [00:28:42]:
My very first question is, how'd you hear about me? And I love it when somebody says, oh, well, I was talking with so and so, and they recommended you. Because when that happens, I know already this is a warm lead. Right. This is not a cold lead anymore. They've already had somebody say something nice about me. That is a much easier sales conversation to have than if we're coming in cold. So these are all things that we can measure, but I think just the easiest way to say it is more customers who spend more, stay longer, and tell others.

Samuel Klein [00:29:15]:
There you go. So that's, how important is a Customer experience and be more intentional when you are operating on a business, when you are providing your service. Because, again, it's only gonna help you grow your business. And it's the best way also to to To diet to word-of-mouth marketing or referral marketing. You know? It's not only doing an amazing job. It's going the extra mile, so we can have, Those referrals. So, let let's talk a little bit about, the the Negative, or or how to deal with the negative feedback or or the negative experience. No? There is a lot of things that, unfortunately, In this industry, you cannot control.

Samuel Klein [00:30:06]:
You when you're have a crew of 200 cleaners, there is there's gonna happen. You know? Something's gonna break. Someone is not gonna come to clean. He's gonna do a bad job. He's gonna forget to get out of the trash. And, they got The customer might leave a bad review on Google, which might hurt your reputation and and problems, Begins now. So, how can we avoid that and how we can deal with negative feedback? It comes to a point where if you grow enough, it doesn't matter how amazing job it's gonna happen. You know? It it's inevitable.

Samuel Klein [00:30:43]:
So, Yeah. I would love to to hear a little bit what would be your advice to dealing with a negative customer experience or feedback.

Dan Gingiss [00:30:54]:
So I love this question. And one of the things that I always advise clients is don't be afraid of complaints. Most companies are afraid of complaints. They don't I mean, of course, nobody likes complaints, but you don't need to be afraid of them. Here's why. People complain because they care. If they didn't care, they would just leave, And they go to your competition. So when they complain, they actually want you to fix the problem because they wanna keep doing business with you.

Dan Gingiss [00:31:26]:
Now if you don't fix the problem, they may leave. The other piece of this that I think is really important, and I actually think we learned a lot of this Through COVID, or it became more crystallized, is I believe that there is an inherent human nature to want to do business with companies that have our backs, that are there for us when we need them most. And during COVID, we figured out which companies were there for us when we needed them and which companies work. There's plenty of statistics that will tell you that customers that have had a problem with the company that was successfully resolved are more loyal than customers that never had a problem in the 1st place, and I believe the reason for that is psychological. It is that when you resolve a problem, you have now convinced your customer that you have their back, that you're gonna beef there for them when something goes wrong. It's okay, especially as you mentioned, as you grow and you have so many cleaners and so many employees. Mistakes are gonna happen. Problems are gonna happen.

Dan Gingiss [00:32:30]:
And I find that today, I know it doesn't seem this way, but most customers are understanding that mistakes happen. They expect you to fix the mistake, and they expect you not to repeat the mistake. So if every week, the garbage isn't getting taken out, That's a bigger problem. But if 1 week somebody forgets to take the garbage out, you're not gonna get fired for that. Okay? But what I like to tell people is When you get a complaint, what happens next is going to determine whether you keep that customer or not. So if you respond with humility, if you respond with a genuine desire to do right by the customer, if you respond, with apology And you fix the problem, then you have communicated to that customer, we got you. We got your back. We're here for you.

Dan Gingiss [00:33:20]:
And that customer is actually gonna leave feeling better. If you ignore a complaint or if you say, oh, that's just a customer that always complains or If you deny that it's a problem or what have you, you're probably gonna lose that customer eventually. And maybe you're okay with that. There are some customers that are worth losing, and I get that. If you have a customer that is that you can never please, then let them go. Let let them go bother your competitor. Right? But most of the customers we wanna keep. And so I think if we approach complaints with this concept of not being afraid, But actually embracing it.

Dan Gingiss [00:33:57]:
We're gonna we're gonna do so much better. The last thing I'll say about this is no company is perfect. And so what complaints do if you are open minded is they tell you how you can improve. You just have to take the negative and turn it into a positive. So the complaint is you didn't empty the garbage. But the positive is we need to proactively check every garbage can every time. K. That's a positive.

Dan Gingiss [00:34:28]:
That's something we can build into our training as opposed to the negative, which is why you stink because you didn't You didn't empty the garbage. So if we can take these complaints and we can take them for what they're what they are, which is Our customer wants us to do better so they can continue doing business with us. We turn them into a positive, and now we don't have to be afraid. The last thing I'll say, I I think I might have said the last thing twice, but I'm sorry about that. As you did mention Google reviews, it is okay when you solve a problem to ask a customer to go back and revise their review. Some of them will, some of them won't, but that's okay to say, hey. We only noticed you left a negative review. We're so sorry you had this problem.

Dan Gingiss [00:35:08]:
Hopefully, it's fixed by now. Would you be okay editing your review? And a certain portion of them will, and and that will help with your overall ratings.

Samuel Klein [00:35:17]:
No. I I love how everything is it's tied up. No? Like, if you don't have, Customer feedback, then, you cannot improve or it's, hard also to create this exceptional customer experience. If you don't have that customer experience, then you're doing to appreciate yourself. And you might not have that opportunity or second chance when someone is gonna complain about Something. You know? And, as you said that I think, you hit the nail is that don't be afraid of complaints. The first reaction, At least in this industry, when someone complains, it's because, most owners are so used to it. It's just they they they're just, like, already with their guards at the hub.

Samuel Klein [00:36:01]:
And, it's like this client again, this client again. In the the other option is, Instead of reacting like that, it's, how can I I turn that and and be a little bit more aware? If this client is complaining, it's because Most likely, he's giving you a second chance to improve and do something about it so you can, you can retain the customer. No? So I I think there is a lot of value there, and I wanna be respectful of your time. So we're gonna wrap up The the conversation with, a couple of more questions. So one, I I don't know if, you wanna share any Emerging trends or or innovations in the customer experience space, what has, gotten your attained your attention lately. If you can even share some examples that blew your mind of of, customers doing something great so we can get some inspiration, We get started there?

Dan Gingiss [00:37:02]:
Yeah. I would say the biggest trend by far is, artificial intelligence And generative AI that, of course, is affecting so many different industries. But you might ask yourself, well, how does it affect, the commercial cleaning space? And what I would say is, I would be using it to, in a in a marketing sense, but also, in a customer experience sense I'm trying to figure out what might you do that's customized or personalized to a certain client. So maybe I'm making this up, but maybe, you hire a client maybe a client hires you and they're a law firm, And they own the whole building. And so maybe we use artificial intelligence to help us understand some of the things that law firms might be concerned about that other people might not be. For example, maybe law firms have more needs for shredders and therefore, to empty the shredders, or they have more needs for confidentiality or for other types of things, we can use AI to tell us that so that we can build a more customized program for them. And there may be different things that we do for different clients. I think that might be an interesting way to just make us smarter.

Dan Gingiss [00:38:16]:
Right? Obviously, we're not at least not yet. We're not gonna use AI to actually clean the place. Maybe someday, but that's not happening right now. But we definitely could use it In helping us talk to clients, and and again, either from a marketing perspective or once they are, currently client, currently clients. In terms of the, great experiences, I always recommend to people this is circling back to what we were saying before about how everybody's a consumer. Pay attention as a consumer to the experiences that you enjoy. Ask yourself I I love to ask this in workshops. And ask yourself and ask your employees.

Dan Gingiss [00:38:55]:
What's your favorite company and why? Now some of them are gonna tell you the obvious names. They're gonna tell you Disney and Amazon and Starbucks, and those are great answers. But we still wanna understand why. Well, I love Starbucks because it's always comfortable, and, My coffee's always the same every time, and I can depend on it. And they know my name, and they even put my name on the cup. Alright. These are ideas. How do we take these ideas and apply them to the commercial cleaning business? Some people may come back with a company you've never heard of, like a local hardware store.

Dan Gingiss [00:39:32]:
Why? Why is that your favorite company? Oh, well, I like them because when I walk into the store, They walk me to the specific place where my item is. I don't have to go searching in the store. They they they take me there. Or I like walking in there because they have items that are local and that were, you know, made locally, or they hire local employees. Okay. How do we take those learnings and apply them to our business? So always be on the lookout for what's working in other businesses and specifically what you and your employees like about different companies, because everybody likes different companies. But whatever you like about it, the why is really what you then can turn in and and start applying to your business. If you ask your employees for their favorite company, I think you will be surprised at how many different companies come up on people's lists.

Dan Gingiss [00:40:26]:
And then the why becomes really, really instructive. So that's that's how I would start.

Samuel Klein [00:40:35]:
Yeah. I love it. So be more aware of your surroundings, of your everyday experiences. You will find, inspirations in the, Again, in your routine, basically, and you because it we're so much in out of pilot, these days that we're not aware, of the small small details, but we keep going to the same places because there is a reason. No. And and that reason might be They provide this amazing experience that that, again, you you just feel happy and comfortable, but you're not aware that you're receiving that experience. So,

Dan Gingiss [00:41:11]:
You know, I I have a great ex I do have a great example. I'm gonna share this link, for your listeners. I actually wrote a whole blog post about bathroom experiences. Okay. And you think, okay, what kind of experience am I gonna have in a bathroom? Well, I ended up finding tons of experiences in bathrooms ranging from funny signs to funny urinals to other things that you'll have to read the blog to to learn about. But the point is, nobody expects A memorable experience when they enter a public restroom. So when they get one, it sticks with them. Right? And so, again, then what can other businesses learn? Maybe you're a business that doesn't have a public restroom, but you probably have a sign somewhere either in your physical space or on your website or what have you.

Dan Gingiss [00:42:04]:
And if if there's a sign in a bathroom that made you laugh, Maybe you can create a similar type of a sign somewhere in your business. So there I I am a believer that experience can happen anywhere, even bathrooms. And I think bathrooms happen to be a a very appropriate, place to be talking for a a commercial cleaning business. But it it definitely goes to show that you can be creative anywhere. You just need to be able to think a little bit differently.

Samuel Klein [00:42:31]:
Amazing. I love it. Looking forward to reading that blog post. Please, share the the link. And, yeah, finally, any any Final piece of advice, someone just starting out, and after hearing this, episode and That person got inspired and they wanna start enhancing their customer experience. Any final tips, piece of advice? And, If people wanna learn more about you, where they can find you online, that would be great.

Dan Gingiss [00:43:02]:
Sure thing. I would say One of the pieces of advice that I give to every company is to the best of your ability, become a customer of your own company. Now I know that's gonna be very hard for a commercial cleaning business. But what do I mean by that? We talk about putting ourselves in the shoes of the customer, but we don't do that literally enough. And so what I want you to do is literally get into the shoes of your customer. I want you to walk into the building as if you work there. I want you to walk in and walk into the rooms that your company has cleaned, And I want you to observe, and I want you to look around and see if there are any light bulbs that are out or see if there are any dust in places or see if it looks clean, See if it smells nice. If we don't do that consistently, then we never see the experience from the eyes of the customers truly.

Dan Gingiss [00:44:06]:
I like to look at this as a mirror. So we sit at our businesses, and we look outward at our customers. But our customers are looking inward at the business. And if we're always just doing this, we're looking at the mirror image, but we're not seeing it from their perspective. So we always have to go in and see it from the customer's perspective. If you maybe what that means is you actually walk with your client, And you and you you probably do this at the beginning. Right? The client probably walks you around, tours the building, says, hey. We're gonna want this clean.

Dan Gingiss [00:44:37]:
We're gonna want this clean. But do you go back 6 months later and do the tour again and say, hey. Are we doing everything that you asked? Or or can we observe things together and point them out? And and are we doing it on a regular basis? Are we checking back in on a regular basis? So I think that's really key is to either become a customer or to find a way to get into the shoes of your customers. As for connecting with me, luckily, I'm not a hard guy to find on the Internet. My website is dan gingis.com. That's where I have all of my, blogs, and information about my speaking and my books. I'm also very active on LinkedIn, especially, posting there a lot and engaging with people. Love to have conversations about customer experience.

Dan Gingiss [00:45:21]:
If you have any questions, always happy to answer them. And I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your show.

Samuel Klein [00:45:27]:
Love it. Thank you, Dan. I wanna See all of our listeners engaging with you and sharing, their experiences and tagging you on LinkedIn. Hopefully, We'll have a great feedback. And most importantly, hopefully, you as a listener will take action of something that you learned today. I appreciate you, Dan. Thank you so much for sharing the knowledge, and, we'll talk soon. Cheers.

INTRO/OUTRO [00:45:54]:
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INTRO/OUTRO [00:46:17]:
time.