Speaker 1: one of the challenges of good times is it breeds laziness, right? Think about like the cable company. Like when you have a monopoly, I mean, how much do you really have to give them? It's not like they can go anywhere, right? So the worst customer service, the worst products are usually the ones that have a monopoly position because there's no competition. There's no reason to push or challenge or do better other than just goodwill, I guess. And so I think when times were good, we get lazy because if you leave, there'll be someone else to give us your business. You know, it'll be fine. I think in hard times where the stresses are higher because there is less business, I think it forces us to actually go back to the basics of what it means to run a good business. And the best customers are the loyal ones, the ones who will stick with you through thick and thin. And so when you engage in relationship building, when you act in a trustworthy manner, when just like I gave the tribal example before, when we as customers get a sense that you would sacrifice your interest to take care of us, we'll give you our love and our loyalty and pay you a premium. You know, when you go back to Nordstrom's and you have a sweater from Bloomingdale's and you're like, can I return this please? They'll take it back. And the reason they'll take it back is because it's fine. So they'll lose money on the sweater, but they made you incredibly happy. This is a decision they made. So I think one of the things that it's revealed right now is that we have to bring our A game, that we don't get to be lazy anymore. And also relying on manipulation, just it's good for the short term, but not for the long term. So examples of manipulation are things like dropping the price, having a promotion, the pressure sell, you know, buy one, get one free. These are all mechanisms to get someone to buy, but they don't do anything to help someone be loyal. They just add the promise of bounty or the threat of punishment. Inspiration is different. It's making someone feel heard, make someone feel good, making somebody feel like they matter. Let me give you an example. So we've all had this experience back in the pre-COVID days where you get done with a business trip early and you wanna go home early, right? You can go home a day early. So you pick up the phone, you call the airline and you say, hey, my business trip got done early. I checked online and it seems that you do have a flight available the day before. Can I please get on that flight? And the customer service agent says, I'm sorry, you have the wrong class of ticket. I can't put you on that flight. And you say, please, I just, I just, I don't wanna sit in the hotel room. I wanna go back to my family. I know you have seats available. Please, please, can you put me on? I'll pay whatever change fees. Please, can you just put me on that flight? I'm exhausted. I'm sorry, sir. I've explained it to you. You have the wrong class of ticket. There's nothing I can do, right? Now let's change that to some, a more empathetic customer focus standpoint. Hey, I'm done with my business trip early. Can I go home early? I noticed you have seats available. Can I get on that flight? Here's the problem, sir. You've got the wrong class of ticket. So the computer won't let me do it. Let me see what I can do. I wanna get you, I wanna get you home. Hold on, click, click, click, click, click. No, that didn't work. Come on, I'm gonna try. We're gonna get you home. We're gonna get you on that flight. Hold on, sir. Click, click, click, click, click, click. No, that didn't work. Hold on, sir. Let me just talk to my supervisor. They may know something I don't know. You hold for a second, they come back. Sir, I am so sorry. I wanna get you home to your family. The computer just won't let me do it because of your class of ticket. I am so sorry. You know what? No worries. Don't worry. Thank you so much for looking. The same result, and this is the problem, which is we usually judge customer service. Like if I got what I want, it's good customer service. If I didn't get what I wanted, bad customer service. That's only half the formula. Half the formula is how we make someone feel. And does the customer service agent actually care about the human being on the other side of that phone? And that goes for everything. It's not just customer service, but do we actually care about the person we're trying, we claim to be serving? We call it customer service. Well, the word serve is in there rather than take or selfish or explain or rationalize. I work in customer rationalization. That actually would be more accurate for most customer service departments. And so I think that idea of treating people and seeing people as people and trying to help people live better lives, I think we're seeing it. And I think that's a very good thing. Not because I think there's some sort of renaissance now. I think it's because we got lazy for a bunch of years and now we're having to go back to basics.