Listen to our interview with Hyken on The BizSTL Podcast
Long before he became an expert on customer service and experience, Shep Hyken was a budding entrepreneur. He started his first business at 12 years old, doing magic tricks at birthday parties. After his first performance, Hyken climbed into his mother’s car $16 dollars richer. That night at dinner, Hyken’s parents had some ideas. His mother instructed him to write a thank-you letter to the family that had hired him. His father went a step further, encouraging Hyken to follow up a week later with a series of questions: How did you like the show? Which tricks did you like best? “Little did I know that’s what every company does,” Hyken says. “They appreciate their customers, they get feedback from their customers, and they act on the feedback to make a better product. That’s customer experience. I didn’t know what it was back then, but that’s what I was learning.” Now, the St. Louis native is the author of several New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books about customer service and experience, and he hosts the podcast Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken. These are some of the customer-service trends that Hyken is following in 2024.
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Customers are smarter than ever before.
“You have to understand that, no matter which industry you’re in, customers are going to compare you to the best experience they’ve had with any company. Often, that’s retail. Not always but typically. Amazon sets the bar high. If you’re in the B2B world and you’re dealing with a procurement person who buys from you, recognize that they are going to compare you to the restaurant server who’s always nice and remembers them each time they walk in the door. There are rockstar companies out there who are saying, We do it right; we’re winning awards. When a customer or client decides to do business with that company, they have a new expectation for every other business.”
Amazon has changed expectations when it comes to speed.
“It’s not just how fast something is delivered. It’s the speed of everything. How fast do you return a phone call? How fast do you respond to an email? Amazon has created new expectations, and a new way of life.”
Employee experience is just as crucial as customer experience.
“What happens inside of an organization is felt on the outside by customers. Brian Keeley, the former CEO of Baptist Health South Florida, used to talk about destination employment. He wanted somebody to work for him who never wanted to leave. If we can create that kind of fulfillment and enjoyment at work where employees don’t want to go anywhere else, we’re going to have people who are more engaged with our customers, they’re going to try harder, and do whatever it takes. The majority of the greatest companies to do business with are often the greatest companies to work for.”
It’s important to stand for something.
“Every year, we do a trends report that I call The State of Customer Service and Customer Experience: Achieving Customer Amazement. In the 2023 report, we found that 43 percent of consumers believe it’s important that a company has a social cause that’s important to them. Some people choose not to do business with somebody if they don’t stand for anything or give back to the community. It could be the Children’s Miracle Network or poverty or sustainability. Gen Z appreciates social causes more than the older generations by a pretty big margin. It’s important.”
Convenience has become the expectation.
“Whether it’s B2B or B2C, the company that can eliminate friction for the customer has the competitive advantage. In our surveys, we’ve found that people say convenience is even more important than a great customer service experience—53 percent of people are also willing to pay more for a convenient experience.”
