How do win over expectations. What comes beyond service?
I always want to strive for the best member experience we can possibly give. The account opening process is the first true human experience almost all members will have with the credit union. We must make this memorable.
I was reading a book awhile back that talked about creating a memorable experience. The only way to create a truly memorable experience is to do something that the member did not expect. That can go 2 ways: it can be something unexpected that was positive, or it could have been negative.
Every time a member interacts with us, they have an expectation of how that interaction will go. No one truly expects to have a bad experience. So they are coming in with a set standard and their set expectations. If we drop below their expectations, that will be memorable, but this is far from what we want. If we exceed the members' pre-set expectations, that is how we will truly create a positive and memorable experience.
We must go beyond their expectations.
We cannot be just another financial institution. Just another bank or credit union. We must be more than a place where they keep their money. We have to create something special.
We have talked about service standards. Not just understood but written and lived service standards. How do we expect to treat our members, how do we want our members to feel each and every time, and how we do this - this is what the standard is.
https://ritzcarltonleadershipcenter.com/about-us/about-us-foundations-of-our-brand/
Ritz-Carlton is recognized to have some of the best service of any business in the world. They set the standard for what good service is. That link is their "Foundations of Our Brand." This is essentially their service standards. Even though this is outside of our direct industry, you will see a lot of similarities in how we are trying to accomplish the things we are working towards.
I am currently reading another book I have had on my list for a while, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.
Will is in the restaurant business but wrote this book for all industries to be able to pull from. I am not too far into the book yet, but something I caught early on was how he defined the difference between "service" and "hospitality." He explains this as 2 different things. Simply said: "service is black and white. hospitality is colorful." What he means is how I started this message.
Service is the technical aspect of an interaction. It is the expected, competent delivery of a product or task. At a restaurant, this could be getting your food brought out on time.
Hospitality is the emotional portion of an interaction. It is how you make someone feel during that interaction: welcome, comfortable, and valued. At a restaurant, this could be the waiter noticing you are celebrating an anniversary and wishing you well.
Unreasonable Hospitality is the next step. If we have a vision in mind for how we want our interactions with members to be, it is this. This is going above and beyond to a degree that seems, to some, irrational. It is about anticipating needs before they are asked, tailoring experiences to the individual, and turning a routine interaction into a memorable, personalized story. Following the same example: The waiter finds out it is your anniversary, sneaks out to buy you a souvenir from the city, and has it wrapped and waiting at the table with a bottle of champagne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTinOoaXmEw
I love this video.
If we were looking for an example of Unreasonable Hospitality within our industry, this is it.