Start With A Win - Creating a Coveted Customer Experience with Jay Baer

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

We are almost a year into the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Some businesses still haven’t adapted to the new needs of their customers. Jay Baer—a thought leader, keynote speaker, and advisor to many notable clients—shares his perspective with Start With A Win listeners that COVID-19 has provided an unprecedented opportunity for business growth if business owners are willing to take it. Right now, every business is a start-up because every business is having to reinvent themselves to accommodate the restrictions, changes, new expectations, and new needs of the business environment and consumers. People have adopted new ways of making purchasing decisions. Only the businesses that have kept up with their customers and the market are going to grow. Jay and his team have come up with a framework for achieving the coveted customer experience, which means that when you consistently exceed expectations, price and perfection don’t matter any longer. Instead, customers will be won or lost based on these three qualities: quick, clear, and kind. That framework is what people care about right now, and it is the best way for businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Almost every interaction they have had with anyone in 2020 has lacked those specific qualities. Even if you think you are doing a great job of practicing these qualities, you may be astounded to see the positive changes that would result from intentionally focusing on providing customers with a quick, clear, and kind experience. Consumers will be so pleasantly surprised that they will become unofficial brand ambassadors for you and help bring new business in the door.Connect with Jay:https://www.convinceandconvert.com/https://www.jaybaer.com/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/social-pros-podcast/id499844469 https://twitter.com/jaybaerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jaybaer Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos https://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Every day is filled with choices. You're here because you're choosing to start with a win. Get ready to be inspired, learn something new, and connect with the win nation. Coming to you from somewhere in Denver, Colorado. I'm Patrick, CEO of Remax here with Start With A Win. I've got virtually in the studio here. Producer Mark, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing so good. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you too. If I haven't said that before, let me say it again. Yeah, exactly. I don't even know what last year was like. We don't want to know but hey you know here we are and by the way for those of you who missed our youtube shenanigans earlier we have the amazing jay bear in virtual studio with us today how you doing jay gents what is going on hey everybody definitely go check out the youtube pre-show if you're listening to us

on the podcast and you can see me stripped down to almost nothing happy new year we call it jay bear reveal it's jay bear b-a-r-e it's a whole different episode title there you go we don't know what we're getting into yet today um we have uh Bear. Jay is an inspirational plaid suit wearing, or at least sport coat wearing, Hall of Fame speaker on marketing and customer experience. I've seen Jay for years speaking on Big Stage. I've taken a ton of notes sitting in the audience listening to you, practically spilled coffee on your hallways as well. You're also a trusted advisor to many, many iconic brands. I mean, you've worked with more than 700 companies, including 36 of the Fortune 500.

And now, and we've had you speak with us before, at Remax as well. So we're honored to have you here. How are you? Thanks. I'm doing great. Things are weird, continue to be weird, but you make accommodations, and we actually had a terrific 2020 in my organization. Huge shout out to my whole team at Convince & Convert. We've done the best work we've ever done on behalf of our clients, and I've actually really enjoyed, Adam, the giving presentations virtually. I

probably did, oh, I don't know, 80 presentations in 2020 and literally never left my house. And I'm okay with that. And you didn't have to put on pants either. Didn't have to put on pants, didn't have to talk to the TSA guys. It's actually all right you know people bemoan this lack of in-person conferences and i'm like i'm okay i'm happy to uh i did i did it for 20 years i'm good uh being at home so i i mean i like you i spend i mean i think 2019 i think i spent like 200 plus days on the road yeah me too so um i mean in and i uh i hopped on a plane the other day. I went to see my daughters in college. They're out in Oklahoma and Kansas. We went to the Kansas-Oklahoma football game, and Oklahoma just walloped Kansas, by the way.

It was more of a family get-together than a competitive environment. But have you been back to the airport, man? I have literally not been to the airport man i have literally not been to the airport i haven't even not not only have i not flown uh as we as we have this conversation but i haven't even gone to pick anybody up at the airport i drive so little now that i sold my car true story because like what is the point of this wow i mean talk about minimizing i mean that's awesome good for me i mean i you know i had i had a you know fancy car as one does and and uh why am i paying for this i literally never go anywhere we have a lake house uh which is just a few miles away and and that was the only trip i ever took i'm i don't need

this car this is nuts so that downsized the car and everything so what do you do uber to the lake house now is that no i did get another car so i sold my car for a less expensive, nice car, but it's still, it gets you there. Yeah, absolutely. You can get like a horse or something too, right? Man, that would be great. It's tricky in Indiana though, riding a horse in January. It's doable. It's doable, but it sucks. So, all right. Well for the audience, I mean, I've, I've been following Jay for, I don't know, it seems like decades, man.

You're marketing and convincingvince & Convert and Social Pros Podcast. And you've had several other podcasts going on too. This is an honor to have you on the show. And we always talk about the consumer here. We talk about how can we help the consumer? How can we do great things for them? So much of what we're doing now, obviously, is virtually. It's online. It's on social media, things of that nature. So my understanding is you've been kind of digging in even deeper during

the COVID period into kind of some of the behavior of the consumer, things like that. What have you been up to lately? Give us a lot across the bow here. What's going on with Jay? Well, I mean, here's the thing, right? I find this to be so interesting. And I'm old enough now to kind of have some perspective on all this. I mean, nobody's pro-pandemic yet, obviously. Nobody's like, man, thank God for the COVIDs. But it is also, and I mean this sincerely, listeners, this is the single greatest opportunity you will likely ever have to grow your business. You will not get a chance like this again. And when I say that,

what I mean is that consumers of everything, right, whether it's real estate or sandwiches or ball bearings or computers or banking services, what have you. Consumers in all sectors of the economy are willing to make different buying decisions now in a way that would have been unprecedented, unthinkable just a few years ago. Six out of 10 approximately customers have made a purchase from a brand new business or somebody they never bought from before. And 90% of those folks say they're going to stay with this new provider. And it's not about being the cheapest. Nearly three in 10 customers say that price matters less than ever.

What we're making decisions on now is largely customer experience and perceived safety and operational efficiencies, things along those lines. And so the good news is that you have the opportunity to go out and take your competitors' customers in a way that wouldn't have worked last year. The bad news is your competitors can take them from you. So the way I like to frame this up, Adam, is that right now, every business is a startup

and has to act like that. It doesn't matter if you've been in business for a year or 10 years or 100 years. Functionally, you are a startup because the relationship that you had between your business and your customers has to be rewired because this isn't a temporary blip on the radar. I think we've all figured that out by now. This is a fundamental reworking of why people buy and from whom they buy. And you can either sit in your conference room or in your home office and say, well, we're just going to hunker down until things go back to normal. Or you can say, this is normal and we're going to go out and kick ass and grow our business

in a way that you couldn't have done it a year ago. Okay. All right. Podcast done done we're good uh that was that was so succinct and and you're 100% correct because you so we saw all these people and let's call it last march i mean we we went into lockdown in denver last uh we went 100 virtual in our company 600 employees march 13th but what we did was we pushed on the gas and we got on video. By mid-year, we did like 25 million minutes on Zoom with our customers. But a lot of companies did not. They just like, poof, they disappeared. And now they're back and they're like, ta-da, hey, remember me? Are you seeing a lot of that in the reemergence of different organizations? And it sounds like they're getting punched in the face by customers who have found other people to work.

Found alternatives in the meantime. Yeah. I mean, imagine you had somebody, just kind of break it down into personal terms. Imagine you were paying somebody to mow your lawn and for whatever reason, pandemic or lethargy or any other reasons, they just didn't show up for three months. Well, before 12 weeks were up, you would have hired somebody else to mow your lawn or started doing it yourself. And the same is true with every kind of business. The folks who were quick to rewire those relationships are crushing it. And the businesses that were slow to rewire those relationships are having a hard time rebuilding their business. Not that it's impossible. It's just tougher sledding because people have moved on to different alternatives in some cases. written about all facets of the pandemic, but the business winners and the business losers and why each ended up that way is going to be a story that we tell for generations to come.

Great point. I always looked at this like the analogy of, you've got these sports stars and during the off season, you have some people that go and eat junk food and donuts, and then you have others that get in the gym and go perfect their craft. And it seems like those that have really focused on perfecting their craft during COVID have taken some ground in that market share. And it's, it's been apparent in a different craft, right? Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, they've, they've started absorbing other industries, right? Yes. Yes. I mean, they've started absorbing other industries, right? Yes. Yes. I mean, look at Peloton, right? And their merger with Lululemon, right? That's such an interesting business combination that made so much more sense in a pandemic than before a pandemic, right? When nobody's going to the gym and they're only exercising in their own home. Well, geez, we also sell athleisure wear in stores that for a while people couldn't go to.

Maybe we should do this together. Now we've got a supply chain and a sales channel. It's like, oh yeah, of course that's one plus one equals three. It's funny you say that. I bought a Peloton during COVID. You and everybody else. Pelotons, RVs, and boats. Those are the things that everybody bought. That's it. That's it. But the executive casual wear now every single day is Lululemon. Yeah, that's it.

And your sweatpants shorts. That's it. I got you. They need to start selling plaid jackets, though. Man, I'll tell you what. You've got influencer program dialed in right here with this guy. I'm in. I'm ready.

There you go. All right. Plaid jackets. Those of you with Lulu who are listening to this, listen up. Jay Baer. I'm waiting for somebody to offer me the pla know the the plaid sport coat collection that i can offer you know out there the jay bear signature collection you know kathy ireland can sell paint or whatever the hell she's selling on qvc i can definitely sell some plaid jackets there's no question about i'll buy one jay thank you i'll be your first

customer buddy thank you thank you okay so how did how did companies do this? I mean, we've been preaching video, things like that, and you look at across the social channels here. What's your biggest recommendation for how people have done this and where can we go from here? I'll stay out of the really specific tactical things because it is so circumstantial from business to business and industry to industry. But categorically, I'll tell you this, Adam. So my research team and I have done a tremendous amount of analysis on this topic. It's so circumstantial from business to business and industry to industry, but categorically, I'll tell you this, Adam. So my research team and I have done a tremendous amount of analysis on this topic. And what you're really trying to create, and it's at one level easier than ever in a pandemic and in another level, it's harder. But ultimately, what you want is what we like to call the coveted customer experience. The coveted customer

experience is when you exceed customer expectations so consistently that price and perfection are no longer required. Price and perfection are no longer required. If you're not the cheapest, that's okay. And if you make a mistake, they will give you a pass. The coveted customer experience gives you what I think is the least discussed, most important thing in business, the benefit of the doubt. That's what a coveted customer experience buys you. So the natural question, Adam, is great, Jay. Well, how do you do that? Well, there's lots of things that you can do in any business to improve, enhance, optimize the customer experience.

But there's only three things that customers in all businesses care about. Categorically, they want you to be quick, they want you to be clear, and they want you to be kind, quick, clear, and kind. So the assignment that I would give the listeners and the same assignment that I give attendees in virtual keynotes every week is, how can you be in your business 15% faster, 15% less confusing, and 15% more empathetic in the next 90 days? If you set that out as a goal for you and your organization and you really lean into it, you will be flabbergasted at what kind of customer experience you can deliver and how that impacts your revenue and your profits.

Perfect. Very concise, Jay. Let me ask you this though, because everybody is going, you're not driving down the street going, okay, where do I want to get a burger? You're going to your iPhone, right? People are going to their phone. They're like, okay, who's going to deliver that to me or who has safety, whatever. And some of these places that essentially have shut down, they haven't had a review in two years. So, I mean, how do we, you're quick, you're clear, and you've shut down. They haven't had a review in two years. So, I mean, how do we, you, you're quick, you're clear and you're kind. Um, what, how do you turn that into your top of mind also? Yeah. Well, I think it, I think it's,

I think you have the question upside down. Um, if you are disproportionately quick, clear, and kind, if you exceed customer expectations, that will be spit back to you in your reviews. You'll see it, right? You'll A, get more reviews, and B, you'll see those kind of things show up in the reviews that people leave for you. And nothing could be more important, especially as a local business. Some new data just came out literally today as we're having this conversation, literally today, 70% of consumers say that reviews are more important to them now than they have ever been in the past. 70%.

70%. Wow. More important now than ever before. And this blows me away. One quarter of all consumers, 25%, have read an online review in the last 24 hours. That's amazing. I mean, that's amazing, right? That's amazing. And it's funny, you talk about where to get a burger. This is another stat from this report. This data comes from our friends at Podium, by the way. I love this stat. 26% of consumers have looked at reviews while in the parking lot of a business

before actually going into the business, which I love, love that example. Cause I've definitely done that, right? You're like, you pull in there, you're like, this might be a good place. Let's look at the reviews before I get out of the car for sure. You know, it, I mean, it's absolutely funny that you say that because we just got back from Kansas visiting, actually from Oklahoma, visiting our daughter from Kansas and Oklahoma. They're both going to school out there. And we would pull up to a restaurant out there in the old rental car and everybody would pull out their iPhone and we'd be like, okay, what are we going to order? What's on the menu? And what are the reviews say? Yeah. I mean, I'm guilty. Before you can go in.

Exactly. Exactly. It's amazing, isn't it? Absolutely amazing. I'll tell you what, I mean, my mom was doing that the other day also. And I mean, so you've got people who are in their late seventies cruising around and who says this is generational now is crazy no no and and look i mean i talked about before that every business is a startup now and and i mean that like people don't know what to expect from you anymore whole world's topsy-turvy right and and this idea that that a customer especially when their health might be at at uh you know at play at some level uh is just gonna trust you and be like, we'll just pull in here

and find out. When you've got all these reviews from other people telling you what's true, nobody's got that kind of gambling streak, right? And it's no surprise that more than half of all customers say that mask wearing policies in the business is one of their top three things they actually look for in review text, which I find fascinating. And it makes absolute perfect sense. But when you were talking about this idea of quick, clear, kind, I'll give you a quick example of how these two things work together, right?

This idea of exceeding expectations in customer experience and then how that feeds into reviews. There's a business in Indianapolis, not too far from where I live, and it's called Bogdanoff and Dodges. They're an accounting firm, small accounting firm. They do small business returns, personal returns, little tax advice. They are exactly the same as some 20,000 small accounting firms in the US. Same product, same services, same price, no differentiation at all, except they have decided to win with quick. They respond to every client request, phone and email within five minutes at all times, five minute response time from an accounting firm. Now that doesn't happen very often in most accounting firms.

And if you actually look at their Google reviews, number one, they've got like a hundred Google reviews for an accounting firm, which is crazy. And number two, if you look in the reviews, almost every single review, Adam says, I can't believe how fast these guys are. I can't believe how fast these guys are. They got back to me within five minutes every time. I love how fast they are. So if you can exceed expectations, it will get spit back to you in reviews. And then it gives everybody else a cue that, hey, this is how you run your business. And then it creates new customers on the back end. So true. It's interesting you say that because I'm sitting here looking at the words quick, clear, kind. And they have actually, when you look at those three words, those are actually

contrary to how people have been treated as a whole during COVID. So, I mean, this is like the antithesis of how you would expect to be treated during COVID. You show up somewhere and they're like, okay, only four people in the room at a time. And it's going to take a while because we only have one cook in the kitchen and these people get to take their time, whatever. I mean, so quick is out the window. Clear, everything's so convoluted. I don't know what I'm supposed to do or say or I'm walking the wrong way. Completely confusing.

Exactly, yeah. There's no clarity at all in this environment. And then kind, everybody got rid of kind when they become the mask police and they're like, put your mask on. And I'm all for the health of the whole thing, but don't yell at me. Sir, I'm sorry, your mask on you know and and and i'm all for the the health of the whole thing but don't yell at me you know sir i'm sorry your mask is too low on your nose that's cool treat me yeah there's a way to do this and why not do this exactly and i mean i saw that at

the gym you know someone will come by your treadmill while you're like bent over sucking wind trying to get a drink of water like get your mask on you're like i'm taking a drink i can't breathe and they're like okay all right we're good I mean, you know, if I drink through the mask, I'm literally waterboarding myself. I can't do that. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to drown here. But, um, this, this is interesting because I mean, you've like completely flipped the whole, the, you know, the treatment of let's try and enforce things on its head. And you said, well, let's be nice to each other and everybody will do what we need them to do. And they'll want to use our business.

Well, weird. Let's treat people with dignity and respect. I mean, that's why I wrote this. That's why I wrote this, this whole idea of quick, clear, kind. I wrote after the pandemic had started to, to the point that you raised. And it's funny. It's so intuitive of you to point that out, Adam, because nobody picks up on that, that like, oh, the things that Jay's recommending are the things

that have gone out the window. And that's just it. That's why the research told us that those are the things that customers really care about. Why do they care about it? Because they don't have it, right? If everybody was fast and everybody was not confused and everybody had empathy, then customers wouldn't seek it because it would be commonplace, but it's not. And even if you think you're being customer kind, you're probably not. That's the work that we do on the consulting side. That's what we always find. Business owners think that they're being fast and not confusing and empathetic. And then you do some research, you're like, oh yeah, you guys are not nearly as good as you thought you were. So true. So true. I mean,

this is gold here. Anybody who runs a business, works in a business, I mean, unless you're sitting on an island somewhere, just peeling coconuts or something like that, I think you need to listen to this because this is pertinent to your business life of quick, clear, and kind jay you know we've uh we've been digging through this for a little while um i have a question for you because i did not touch on this earlier but where can everybody find you to find out more wisdom and insight like this where can we find you on the social media or wherever not at the airport definitely not at the airport um but uh yeah I'm Jay Baer, B-A-E-R, on all the places, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Our main website for the organization is convinceandconvert.com. We have thousands of free articles for business owners, managers, and marketers there on customer experience and digital marketing.

And my main podcast, as you mentioned earlier, is called Social Pros, all about how medium-sized and large companies, including your own, handle their social media. I love it. And it has this little bell sound in the beginning of it. Yes, it's audio branding. Yep. There you go. It worked with me because I remember it. I see the little, in fact, I the the little orange box up right now on my iphone i was listening to you in the gym this morning my friend thank you so um anyhow uh jay also i have a question i ask everybody who's on the show and that question is why is kansas football so bad i can't tell you in this amount of time, but they are truly a bad team. I, you know, it really was kind of, it was like, they should have a mercy rule in college football.

They really should. I am a Nebraska fan historically. So I'm very, very familiar with Kansas's tribulations. Gotcha. So, and I mean, well, Oklahoma is one of the best. So anyhow. Okay, Jay, well, here's the question. And then I have a picture of my kids. My daughter's a senior in college, my son's a sophomore. So I don't get to see them very much anymore. So what I do is in the morning, first thing I do when I wake up is I turn over and I look at the picture of them, which kind of keeps me centered and grounded and a reminder of kind of why I do what I do and, and why I work as hard as I work. To me, that's a win.

I love that. That, I mean, you know, it touches the heart. If I've got kids in college, I mean, it's,

it's kind of weird being an empty nester and it is not having them. Yeah. It seemed great till the pandemic hit. Then it started to suck. Yeah. I had all these big, I had all these big empty nester plans and, and then, you know, what are you going to do? Right. Right.

And then they all come back and then you're like, Hey, which was supposed to happen this way. I look forward to seeing them over the holidays. Cause they went back to college. Yeah. But me too. Anyhow. Cool. All right. Jay bear, social pros podcast, convincing convert. Again, I look forward to seeing you at your next virtual speaking gig. Thank you. All right, Jay Baer, Social Pros Podcast, Convince and Convert. Again, I look forward to seeing you at your next virtual speaking gig. Thank you. I hope our pants all still fit when we go back to big stage speaking there, buddy.

So anyhow, thanks again for being on Start With A Win, and we appreciate all you do. You bet. Thanks so much. Great to be here. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win. If you'd like to ask Adam a question or tell us your start with a win story give us a call and leave us a message at 888-581-4430 don't forget to go into itunes and subscribe write a review rate the show it helps us get the word out and reach more people for more great content head over to start with win.com and follow adam on instagram facebook Facebook, and Twitter. And until next time, start with a win.