When a meeting planner, association executive or speakers bureau begins searching for a customer service speaker, the assignment often sounds fairly straightforward.
“We need someone to speak about customer service.”
But after nearly thirty years of speaking, training and consulting on customer service and customer experience, I’ve learned that what most organizations actually need goes much deeper than service techniques, communication skills or another reminder to smile, listen carefully and be nice to the customer.
Those things matter. But they are not what creates distinction.
When I talk with meeting planners and speakers bureaus, one of the first distinctions I make is this:
Customer service is the process. Customer experience is the emotion.
And understanding the difference can completely change what an organization should look for when hiring a customer service speaker.
Customer Service Is What You Do. Customer Experience Is How They Feel.
Customer service includes the actions and processes involved in serving someone. How quickly did you respond? Was the employee knowledgeable? Was the problem resolved? Was the transaction easy? Did everyone follow the appropriate procedures?
Those are all important, and organizations absolutely need processes and standards.
But customers rarely become loyal because a company followed its process correctly.
They become loyal because of how the interaction made them feel.
Did I feel valued? Did I feel heard? Did I feel like you cared about me or simply wanted to complete the transaction? Did I trust you? Did you make my life easier? Did you make me feel confident that I chose the right company?
That is customer experience.
It is also why I tell meeting planners that if they are looking for someone who will simply teach their audience how to deliver better customer service, they may be setting the bar too low.
The real opportunity is to change the way people think about the customer altogether.
What Are Meeting Planners Really Trying to Accomplish?
In my experience, planners rarely contact me because everything is perfect and they simply need someone entertaining to fill an hour on the agenda.
There is usually a business reason behind the request.
Perhaps customer expectations have changed. Competition has increased. Employees are struggling with consistency. Leadership wants to build a more customer centric culture. The organization is losing customers it should be keeping. Salespeople are competing too heavily on price. Different departments are creating very different experiences. Or leadership simply recognizes that the experience surrounding its product has become as important as the product itself.
That is the conversation I want to have with a planner before I ever walk onto the stage.
I don’t want to know only how many people will be in the room, how long I have to speak and what time I go on.
I want to know why we’re doing this.
What is happening in the organization? What are customers saying? Where are the inconsistencies? What does leadership want people doing differently after the conference? What challenges are employees facing? What does the competitive environment look like?
Those answers determine the presentation.
Because the best customer service keynote shouldn’t simply be about customer service. It should be about their customers, their employees, their challenges and their business.
A Customer Service Speaker Should Connect Service to Business Results
One of the biggest mistakes organizations can make is treating customer service as a soft skill that sits somewhere outside the “real” business.
It isn’t.
Customer service and customer experience influence retention, referrals, reputation, employee engagement, pricing power and ultimately revenue.
If customers see very little difference between you and your competitors, price becomes increasingly important. If they believe the experience you provide is meaningfully different, the conversation begins to change.
Now you’re creating value.
That is why I spend so much time talking about emotional connection.
Products can be copied. Features can be copied. Pricing can be matched. Technology eventually becomes available to everyone.
But the relationship an organization creates with its customers is much more difficult to duplicate.
The employee who remembers something important about a customer, anticipates a need, solves a problem without making the customer fight through layers of bureaucracy or simply demonstrates genuine concern can create more brand loyalty in five minutes than an advertising campaign can create in months.
That isn’t a customer service tactic.
That’s an experience.
The Customer Experience Begins Inside the Organization
There is another question I believe planners and speakers bureaus should ask when evaluating a customer service speaker:
Does this person understand culture?
Because you cannot consistently create an exceptional external customer experience without first creating the right internal experience.
Employees who don’t feel respected, trusted, supported or connected to a meaningful purpose aren’t suddenly going to become passionate brand ambassadors because somebody gave an entertaining keynote about customer service.
Research from Gallup on employee experience reinforces the importance of creating a workplace environment that supports engagement and performance. The connection between the employee experience and the customer experience is one of the reasons I believe customer service can never be treated as simply a frontline responsibility.
Leadership matters. Culture matters. Internal customer service matters.
The way people treat one another inside an organization eventually finds its way to the customer.
That means a strong customer service speaker should be able to connect the dots between leadership, employee experience, culture, customer service and customer loyalty rather than treating them as unrelated topics.
They aren’t unrelated.
They are all part of the same experience.
Look for Someone Who Can Customize the Message, Not Just the Opening Slide
I’ve seen the word “customized” used pretty loosely in the speaking business.
Changing the logo on the first PowerPoint slide is not customization.
Mentioning the company name several times isn’t customization either.
A meaningful customer service keynote should reflect the language, challenges, customers and realities of the organization sitting in the room.
That requires research.
Before a major presentation, I spend time talking with leadership and often other people inside the organization. I want to understand what is happening from their perspective. Depending on the engagement, I may research the industry, competitors, customer expectations and larger trends affecting the marketplace.
I then determine how the principles I teach apply specifically to that audience.
The concepts may be universal.
The application should not be.
That is one of the things I emphasize when talking with meeting planners and speakers bureaus. They aren’t simply buying a presentation from me. They are bringing me into their organization for a specific reason, and I have a responsibility to understand that reason before I step onto their stage.
That approach comes directly from the real world business experience I had long before becoming a professional speaker. I spent decades working with companies and their customers before I ever made speaking my full time profession, and that perspective still drives the way I prepare for every engagement.
Information Alone Isn’t Enough
There is one more component that matters enormously when choosing a customer service keynote speaker.
The audience has to care.
A speaker can have outstanding information, but if people aren’t emotionally involved in the presentation, very little of that information is going anywhere.
I believe the presentation itself should demonstrate the very principles we’re talking about.
People should feel something.
They should laugh. They should recognize themselves in the stories. They should occasionally become uncomfortable because something hits a little too close to home. They should think about their own behavior, their customers and the way they contribute to the culture around them.
And when the presentation is over, they should leave with practical ideas they can actually use.
That combination matters.
Emotion gets their attention. Relevance makes it personal. Practical application turns the idea into action.
What Should You Look for in a Customer Service Speaker?
If you’re a meeting planner, association executive or speakers bureau looking for a customer service keynote speaker, don’t limit your search to someone who can teach better service techniques.
Look for someone who understands the entire customer relationship.
Look for a speaker who can connect customer service to customer experience, customer experience to emotion, emotion to loyalty and loyalty to measurable business results.
Look for someone who understands that the customer experience doesn’t begin with the customer. It begins with leadership, culture and the way employees treat one another.
Look for someone willing to understand your organization before telling your people what they should do differently.
They experience your people.
And perhaps most importantly, look for someone who understands that customers don’t experience your mission statement, your training manual or your customer service policy.
That is ultimately what I sell to meeting planners.
Not a speech about being nicer to customers.
Not a list of customer service techniques.
Not another motivational hour that feels great in the ballroom and disappears by Monday morning.
I help organizations understand how seemingly ordinary interactions create extraordinary emotional responses, and how those responses determine whether customers merely complete a transaction or develop a relationship with the brand.
Because customer service may be the process.
But customer experience is the emotion.
And emotion is what people remember.