Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Now I want you to turn to your partner. I want you to be honest. On this scale where do you rank your service mindset? You got 15 seconds. Ready,  go!  Alright now, let’s be clear. Let’s be clear. I’m not suggesting that you should try to do this for everybody all the time. You’ll go mad or you’ll go broke. But  I am saying that from time to time if you keep your eyes open you’ll find an opportunity to be able to do this that’s gonna be really worthwhile. Now today’s talk is all about 70 minutes. But normally this presentation takes three hours. In this tape program, the secrets of superior services are all three hours: lots more stories, lots more strategies, lots more ideas, lots more tips, lots more techniques. The good news is you can get this. The bad news is there are only 30 copies out there. The really good news is that ma’am right there in the green scarf. This  one for you. Would you pass that back there for her. Give  her a nice clap. Why did she get it because service is a two-way street? I’m telling my jokes. She’s going 😆!  I give you, you give back to me. This one’s called unbelievable! When you invest in a product you send a powerful message to your subconscious. It says hey this is valuable for me. I can use this, I can learn something. Let me get a copy. This one’s right there for you sir, in the blue tie. That’s right you’re the one. behind you, you don’t have a blue tie, sir. You got a yellow. Here you go. You can pass it back. Let’s give him a clap yeah. I got one more category here. This category down below is below basic, horrible, terrible, lousy, I call it UNBELIEVABLE!

All right. You guys are great. Turn the page. In a world like we have today people’s expectations are going which way up or down? Up all the time and you do the best you can to try to meet their expectations but once in a while no matter how hard you try you’re not gonna be able to meet their expectations. Isn’t that true? It’s true. What do you do then? What do you do then? We have people come up to the airport, they’re late, they say.. “Get me on that flight” The flight’s already gone. We can’t say “Excuse me, captain, can you bring the plane back please? We have one more” no what do we do? A  guy comes up, he is late. The plane is still here. He says “I want an aisle seat near the front, make it fast”. Whoa, we’ve trained the people behind the counter how to handle this. First thing you do. See if there is an aisle seat near the front. If there is, lock it in taking it, it’s yours nobody’s gonna take it away. But don’t tell him you got it cuz he’s already in a bad mood. Instead, work with him a little bit. Say um “Sir, it’s quite a full flight”. Now when he hears that, is that gonna make him happier or less happy? And they answer “you’re a little bit late. But  I can see this is important to you, hold on one moment I’ll call the gate”. Call “Hello gate! Yes, I have one more for the flight. Yeah  I know he’s late, I know it’s a full flight. That’s why we’ve called you. Could you help me out here please? Yeah .. no please try and get it. It’s very important to this fellow. oh oh yeah right okay, you got one okay, okay, okay, good, good, okay yeah. Thank you, thank you, very much. Now, what’s this guy doing during that call?

Guess what? There’s no one on the phone. What are we doing to the guy? We’re managing expectations, managing customer expectations. How do you do that? I want to share with you one tactic. It’s a tactic that you can use to manage people’s expectations. Now for most of you I imagine your company has paid for you to be here. So usually get some value from the seminar for business applications. But we’re all human beings too. We got loved ones, we got relationships, we got families. I want you to learn something you can use in your personal life as well. I fly down to Jakarta on a regular basis to do seminars for the banks in Indonesia. A colleague of mine who’s very strong in banking comes with me. He does the banking, I do the service. It’s a two-day seminar for senior managers. We take the first flight in the morning from Singapore to Jakarta. We do the seminar, we stay overnight at the hotel. We do the second day of the seminar we take the last flight from Jakarta back to Singapore. So we’re only gone from our families for one night. Because we’re taking the first flight in the morning we got to leave the house at about 5:30 am. His wife drives him to the airport. I’m right on the way so they picked me up. We’re at the airport and we’re getting out of the car. She said to him “Sweetheart, will you call me tonight”. He said “Of course, I will honey. That was to her not to me. I’m not JoeGerard. I lived in California but it didn’t infect me that way you know? We get down to Jakarta, we do the seminar, we check into the hotel, I knocked on his door, he said come on let’s get some dinner. He said, “Hold on, I gotta call my wife”. I said, “Right, right I remember you told her you were gonna call”. Listen  I’ll go back to my room, you come and tell me”.. No no it’s okay sit down. So  I sat down in his room and he called his wife. The call went like this, “Hi honey how’s everything? good. The kids? okay good. Yeah, seminars fine, we’ll be here one night, I’ll be back tomorrow night. Okay, sweetheart yeah I love you too, I love you. good night”. The next morning as we were checking, out he had to pay for that telephone call. The hotel in Jakarta charged us a 250 per cent charge on top of the normal price of the telephone call. And he’s going, “Oh man this is a ripoff, I want to talk to the manager. I don’t want to pay this, this isn’t fair”. And  I’m standing there going, “Hey come on we got to teach, would you please hurry up? We got to go. And he goes, no anyway this is a principal thing. Oh, excuse me. Now he ended up paying the bill but he was in a bad mood all morning because of that one phone call. 

The next month he and I flew back down to Jakarta to do the same seminar for another group of managers from this Bank. 5:30 in the morning we drive to the airport and we’re getting out of the car. His wife said to him “Honey, will you call me tonight?” I’m going deja vu! I’ve been here before. He says to her “Sweetheart we’re only gonna be gone just one night. You know this hotel, they put a 250 per cent surcharge on. Is it alright with you if I don’t call just for one night?” She goes, “Of course honey, I understand” To him not to me. All right. And so we fly down, we do the seminar, we check into the hotel, I knock on his door, “Hey come on let’s get some dinner”. He goes “Hold on a second I gotta call my wife,” I said “no you don’t. I was there. You told me you’re not gonna call. She’s not expecting you to call. Let’s go have some dinner. He goes on, “come on in, sit down. So  I go and I sit down. He calls his wife. The conversation goes like this: “Hi honey. I could hear her she goes, you CALLED! He starts to milk it. He goes, “I missed you so much. “She goes,..  How are our precious children? Oh darling you mean everything to me blah, blah, blah blah, blah, blah” He talks for four times as long as the previous month. The next morning we checked out. He’s paying for the call with a smile. I go “Kind of expensive huh”? He goes, “No I don’t mind”. I go, “Wait a minute, last month there was a short call and you were all upset. This month you talk for a long time, you don’t mind.” He goes “Ron, come on, you teach this stuff. If I tell her I’m gonna call and then I call, what happens? She expects it. Every once in a while Ron I tell her I’m not gonna call and then I call. Just like that, I’m a service quality husband”.