BEET It

Last September I was trying to charge my phone with my fully charged Kmashi charging brick, but my phone would not charge. This was serious! I was only part way through my day, my phone had died, and my charging brick was nothing more than a paperweight. Not a single volt of electricity was going to come out of this battery pack, and not a single snap was going to be able to be sent. I immediately sent an email to the company regarding this dud charger. In a matter of hours, I heard back from the company, and they had already sent a new charger in the mail for me. I was absolutely astonished by the customer service, and I started to tell every one of my friends about the experience I had with the Kmashi company.

            Fast forward to this afternoon, Miss Tolosky, Rebecca, and I had the opportunity to listen to a guest speaker, Jay Baer. Mr. Baer talks about several main points from his book, “Hug your Haters”. He talks about how customer experience and customer service is great when one exceeds their expectations. He also talks about how a company is represented by how good or bad their customer service is. Now depending on how good or bad your experiences are with a company OR person, you are either pleased with them, or immediately turned away from them. That is why when I received my new Kmashi battery pack, I started to tell everyone on how pleased I was with their services.

           

Taking this message a little deeper, we can apply this idea of great customer service that leads to great customer experience to our own everyday lives and interactions. When we choose to exceed other’s expectations of us, we create that great experience. Now finding a reason to always create that experience can be hard. Baer also talked about BEET, Be Empathetic Every Time. He created this acronym for companies to remember to be empathetic towards their customers, because they didn’t know the customers background. I know that my email to Kmashi about the new battery pack may have been a little sassy when addressing the company. Yet, Kmashi chose to use BEET, and sent me the most empathetic and apologetic email. And because of that, they got a customer for life.

            It is far too easy now days to be a little sassy and short to others when we are annoyed and agitated. It is easy to let ourselves be poorly branded by others when we are not putting forth that great customer service. As students, as friends, and as FFA members, we need to put forward a positive brand for ourselves and FFA. Each time we choose to put forward a positive brand and use BEET, we are creating that GREAT experiences for ourselves, others and everyone around us. So how are you going to choose to be empathetic? What are you going to do to put forward a positive brand for yourself and FFA every day? So why do you want to choose to put forward great customer service to others to create that great experience and brand?

Beneath the Rising Sun,

Spencer Wolter

Minnesota FFA State President