Yesterday I told you my three answers to Wizard Academy Vice Chancellor Michele Miller’s questions about the Shareworthy Customer Service class I am teaching with Tim Miles January 29-30.

Here are Tim’s answers…

Michele: How did you two come up with the idea of teaching this class?
Tim: About a year ago, two things happened in the same week.

One – one of my clients said to me, “Tim, I’m a liar.” He was becoming aware that his employees weren’t living up the promises we were making in his ad campaign. Since then, his customer service scores (measured by the same Net Promoter Score system used by Amazon, Apple, Trader Joe’s, and countless others) have risen to twenty points higher than Apple’s.

Two – Best Buy made my mom cry. Well, the CEO didn’t make her cry, but one of their Geek Squad members was so rude and condescending to my 76-year-old-non-cryer mother that I couldn’t sit idly by. I did what lots of people do: I took to the Internet and blogged about it to a couple thousand people, and I put it on all my social media outlets. Now, Best Buy’s stock is tanking. Is Trish the reason? Not specifically, but it got me wondering if something systemic was causing companies like Best Buy to miss the proverbial boat.

Michele: We see lots of workshops on creating good customer service. Your course description looks intriguing – what is one thing that sets this course apart from others out there?
Tim: Is our course different? I think so.

For one thing, it’s not just about “being nicer to people,” but rather it’s about building a system that measures and rewards customer delight. It’s about budgeting for it. It’s about where that budget comes from and how to implement it and how to build a culture of ownership among your employees.

Additionally, we went through hundreds of accounts of delightful customer experiences from the very best companies – large and small – in the world, and we deconstructed what made them great. Turns out there are only fourteen different defining characteristics to customer delight, and you can tune them to suit your business.

Michele: What is the most important thing students will walk away with?
Tim: They’ll have a customized plan to build and implement a program that’s currently working for every one of our clients that began using it this year. They’ll begin to spend less in advertising. They’ll create a culture where employees love coming to work BUT aren’t working longer hours or particularly harder while they’re working. They’ll be the one company in town where the best specialists in their business category WANT to work.

Not a bad way to spend two days, huh? Come join us in Austin.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com