What a Lousy Blackjack Dealer Taught me About Customer Service

Mini-lesson for those who don’t want to read the whole post: “You probably should have read the whole post.”

I sat down at the Blackjack table, pulled out a $20 and stuck it on the velvety green tabletop for the dealer to change. He gave me four weathered $5 chips, then neglected to wish me luck.

He dealt the cards and I won my first hand, earning another $5 chip.

While beginning to shuffle, the dealer the said, “I’ll get you the next hand.” He didn’t say it with humor or sarcasm, which I wouldn’t have minded one bit. He said it with that awful I’m-king-of-the-world tone possessed by people who enjoy throwing fast-food wrappers out their car windows.

I looked up at him with my eyebrows raised. Not so much from surprise at what he said, but because I’ve rarely had a Blackjack dealer talk to me at all. And I’ve never had a dealer say something other than “Nice hit,” or “Good luck,” or a well-placed “Sorry.”

The dealer noticed me giving him my best stink-eye, shrugged and said, “What? It’s true. It’s only the odds. The dealer usually wins.”
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There are Only Four Business Styles. Which is Yours?

Which Style of Business is Yours? Your customer has money and you want it.

You have a service or product for sale and your customer wants that.

Somewhere between those two is a seemingly delicate balance of who delivers what and for how much money. I say a “seemingly” delicate balance because in truth there’s only one way to intelligently run your business. And when I say “intelligently” I mean with more knowledge than, say, a jar of mayonnaise.

When your client gives you money, you have a choice of what you do with it and what you give him in exchange.

The four types of business exchange

Someone gives you money for a product or service and you take it and run. That’s called theft.
Someone gives you money and you do a lousy job for them. That’s called being half-ass.
Someone gives you money and you do exactly what you say you’ll do. That’s called fair exchange.
Someone gives you money and you do exactly what you say, and then a little bit extra. That’s called securing your future.

For real business people and people who believe in ethics, options 1 and 2 aren’t options. They’re unethical business practice and could possibly land you in jail and/or with a black-eye and missing teeth. I don’t recommend this route. Unless you just happen to be a fan of cramped spaces and general disfigurement.

Option 3, just delivering what was expected, is certainly fair. It’s also excruciatingly average. I don’t recommend this route either.

Option 4, going that little bit further, is the only way to go.

How to deliver beyond expectations

Do it faster. Your client is expecting the project in six days. Extra: Finish it in three.
Give them more stuff. Your job is to deliver a horse to your client’s stable. Extra: Throw in the rope or a free bag of feed.
Educate them. Your client wants a website, so design the website and then show him proof of its valid code, or how the contact form works. Or write him a tutorial on how to use the site on his own. Or give him free site maintenance for a month.
Extra service. Your client is expecting five logo samples to choose from. Extra: Give him ten.
Great communication. Your client is expecting an answer to his emails within 24 hours. Extra: Write him back in 5 minutes. If people in general were better at communicating, I wouldn’t list this as an extra. Nowadays, believe me, it is. Fast, open and clear communication is extraordinary. The “I’ll get around to it” attitude is the prevalent viewpoint on emails.

There are other ways, but you get the idea.

And can you imagine if you did a combination of these methods? Pandemonium. In a good way.

But doesn’t this break the bank?

Not at all. The point is not to give away so many extras that you break even on every project. The point is to be extraordinary, and that doesn’t necessarily take money. Sometimes all it takes is great communication to do the trick.

And besides, if your idea of great exchange is to supply only the barest of minimums you’re not really cut out for business. Every stellar business success has been built on a foundation of delivering above and beyond.

And if the extras you choose to employ do take money, you’re still in fine shape because you can deduct the costs from your income as a business expense. That means it’s a wash and costs you a grand total of zero cents.

Don’t look for ways to cut down your service to your clients. Cheap businesses do this and it makes them look even cheaper.

Everybody can be average. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t.

Anti-GTD advice: Managing your email and good customer service

You may be productive but your customer service blows

I don’t check my email every hour or four as GTD specialists seem to recommend.

I never check it at all because my email is always up and it checks itself every minute. I use the Gmail/Google Notifier combo and when someone writes, a little window pops up and tells me who’s writing and shows the first couple lines of their email. I hear a beep, glance up from my work for approximately .00003 billiseconds, see who wrote, decide if it’s important and respond or not. If it’s a client or potential one, I usually respond immediately.

“But Charlie,” you’re surely saying right now, “it takes time to glance up from your work. And I’ll bet by the end of the day, you’ve wasted 5 or 6 minutes doing so.”

Well, guess what. I’ve got 5 or 6 minutes. I don’t run my life or my business where I’ll implode if I check one more email. When I was in the corporate world that’s how things were. And that’s why I got out.

One of the things that bugs me about the GTD system, or rather one version of it I guess, is that email accountability goes out the window. Productivity specialists often recommend very intermittent email checking. They say check it only in the morning, or only in the evening, or every four hours.
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How to get testimonials from your clients

Thumbs Up In a recent post I discussed the need for testimonials, but I think I should cover how you might go about getting them.

Although I haven’t been using them long, since I started requesting them I’ve never been refused a testimonial. That has a lot to do with the outcome of the project obviously, but it also has to do with the process by which I go about getting them and the philosophy behind it.

How to get testimonials

Don’t wait until the end of the project

The process for getting a testimonial doesn’t begin when the project is over. The process starts from the very first email, phone call or meeting you have with the client. If you’re a jerk right off the bat, it’s unlikely you’ll get a good testimonial, even if the project comes out a raving success.

First impressions, while not indelible, are certainly hard to alter. Be nice, be respectful and be professional from the second the project begins until the very end.

Do a good job

Nothing is going to ensure a testimonial like just doing a brilliant job. If you are supposed to design a logo with a swoosh, design a logo with a swoosh and don’t stop until your client is happy.

If you do this it is pretty much guaranteed you’ll get a good testimonial. A couple things can stand in your way and one of them is…

Your attitude

If you treat your client like an ass you’re not going to get a testimonial no matter how successful the project is.

Being a successful freelancer is not just about making a great logo, or a slick website or writing the 150 words your client wanted. It’s about delivering what was asked for, of course, but it’s also about being and acting professional.

Give a little extra

I always give more than I’m asked for and more than I promise. If I say I’m going to do 10 logo variations, I’ll do 15. If I say I’ll have the project done by Tuesday, I’ll finish it Monday. This is a great philosophy for both business and life. This point alone will probably give you more word-of-mouth business than anything.

Your clients will be happy when you do what they want. But they’ll be ecstatic if you give them more than they expected!

Ask for it

As to getting the actual testimonials, just ask for them and don’t be covert about it. A great majority of your clients will have absolutely no problem giving you a good testimonial if you just ask for one.

The way I go about it is to just be honest and say, “I’ve really enjoyed working with you and if you’d enjoyed working with me, I’d love a testimonial. They’re very good for business!” Your client, most likely also a business person, will understand this. You can possibly even swap testimonials, especially if you’re going through a job board like Scriptlance, eLance or even eBay where the feedback system can provide you all you need.

Don’t add extra work for your client

Some clients don’t want to put in the extra work to write you a testimonial. Some clients, no matter how great you did on the project, just won’t want to help you out. Some will just flat out say no, regardless. Let’s face it, some people are jerks and the more angelic you are the more they think you’re a serial killer. It happens, but all is not lost.

In cases like this, when my client has a chip on his shoulder or there’s just bad chemistry, I’ll write the testimonial myself based on what the client has said over the course of the project.

For example, I had a client for whom I did a logo design. My first batch of logos went to him within half an hour and he didn’t expect them until a few hours later. His email in response said, “Wow that was fast!”

Unfortunately that was the only nice thing he ever said to me, even though the project turned out great.

Over the course of the project his emails got more and more terse. He stopped capitalizing, stopped spelling correctly and his grammar got to the point where I was actually having trouble deciphering it. I knew that asking him to write me a testimonial from scratch would be like asking him to slice off his left arm.

At the end of the project I asked him if he’d mind me using his “Wow that was fast!” email on my website as a testimonial. I also made it a point to tell him I’d only use his initials and not his full name. There was no work for him to do and he agreed.

Testimonials are not all created equal

If you have a bunch of testimonials that say “Joe designed a logo for me,” or “Sarah creates great websites,” they’re not going to do much for you. Potential clients can already see by your portfolio that you design logos and they can decide for themselves whether or not they’re great.

The kind of testimonials you should get, as I mentioned in an earlier post, should act as character witnesses for you. They don’t need to say what you do but how you do it. Your testimonials should mention things like your:

Speed
Availability
Work ethic
Approachability
Communication
Turnaround time
Quick response time

Testimonials should tell your potential clients about your more intangible qualities. How you get testimonials of this kind instead of the more generic ones, again, is to just ask for them. Sometimes I’ll dig through email exchanges for good sound bites, compile them and then ask the client permission to use it all.

If you can show that you not only do great work but that you do it as a constant and consistent professional, you’ll be unstoppable.

Any tips you’d like to add? I’d love to hear some ideas you use to get client testimonials and any problems you’ve run into.