REVIEW: Startups Live ICYMI | Joshua Davidson on Customer Service (Part I)
The importance of excellent customer service cannot be overstated. Hear why it’s so important and how startups can ingrain it into everything they do.
Written by Keith Liles // Also shared on Startups.co.
“It’s the same as having the proper form with lifting weights; if you don’t have the right form, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
–Joshua Davidson, Six Customer Service Principles To Abide By
Taking care of people. It’s a calling, an art. It’s a service. It can also be a way of life, company culture, and doing business. Joshua Davidson is somewhat of an evangelist on the topic of customer service, preaching the principles of outstanding customer service with the conviction of a man who has religion.
And his principles, the quality and clarity of his thinking — are all of the highest level. The same can be said for the questions posed to him during this Startup Livechat, as well as this discussion on customer service as a whole. Given the unprecedented length of the responses posted within the strictly scheduled hour and the exceptional quality of the responses, this is recap of a Startups Live session has been broken into 2 parts. Without further ado…
“Morning everyone!” greeted Eileen Guan. “Today we have the author of today’s article, Joshua Davidson, joining us to chat about the principles of customer service. Joshua is the Founder and CEO of chopdawg.com and co-host of The Pawdcast! Thanks for joining Joshua!”
“Pleasure as always!”
“Why do you think we tend to suck at creating good customer service?” Wil Schroter got down to business.
“Because it’s hard work. I hate to see it that way but it is true. Good customer service means you actually need to care about the customer, and you need to put in action. Two things that require hard work and require being authentic. Think about how many ‘customer service’ folks do not truly care about the person/company on the other end… and hate to work any harder than a 2 out of 10 on the hardwork scale?”
“I hate to break it down so simple, but it is true.”
“No, I agree with the hard work part for sure. It’s almost like a cost of doing business mentality vs. a key product strength.”
“Totally agree with ya Joshua,” said Eileen. “I think this quote, ‘Imagine spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, months of work, your sweat and labor on the app of your dreams, just for it to trip out of the starting gate.’ sums up why customer service is so valuable. Did did you have to learn that lesson the hard way or did you always know the value of it?”
“So, hard question to answer for me personally. Reason being, I am obsessed with customer service. I run a service-based company. To me, it is in our DNA. We can’t afford not to have a service-first mindset. With that said, you see it often. How many companies fail because of a terrible first impression, terrible customer experience, etc? How many times you received the wrong order and a company basically gave you the digital middle finger? You’ll never shop there again, right? It is that simple!”
“You’re totally right! I had an awful experience with Delta where I had to cancel my ticket. When I went and got another I purposely chose AA AND paid more for it just to avoid using Delta again. Bad customer service = less revenue.”
“One of the messages I always deliver to our CS team,” said Ryan Rutan, “is to remember that what might seem like a mundane act on our side could be a life-changing enabler on the customer side. Password reset on Fundable = Now I can start raising funding for my dream business. It isn’t about the work — it’s about what it enables for the user.”
“Exactly. It transcends a service to any kind of company, product, value.”
“How useful is it to put your engineering team in customer service?” asked Imran Siddiq.
“It’s all about the relationship between the client and the company — needs to be one of trust. When we hire, we already know when talking to a candidate that we love their design or development skills. We sorted that out before interviews. When we start interviewing, we focus on two things: accountability and customer service (personality).”
“And as we operate as a company, Imran, I hammer home the importance of remembering our customers are the reason we exist, we can provide pay checks, we can grow. We don’t hire anyone at Chop Dawg who couldn’t work with a client or communicate for the team themselves.”
“Think about it this way — everyone you hire represents the total sum that is the company. One bad seed = the company is bad. If you hold yourself to that standard, you will excel.”
“It’s the why we have grown our team from just myself to 22+ full-time people.”
“For a lot of folks, though, Customer Service is something people dread,”said Wil. “How do you create an environment for the folks that work there where they feel like it’s not dreadful?”
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