04 May Do you have a story?
Storytelling has been a natural form of human communication from time immemorial. However, it is only now that businesses have starting using this art form to `get messages across’.
Gabrielle Dolan, global thought leader on real communication and business storytelling describes her first experience of a personal story that was delivered as a business message. She says it was `a sliding door moment’ for her. Most inspiring and engaging leaders, says Dolan, use stories to explain their actions and choices in some way.
Talking about how real stories can enhance branding, business and customer delight, I recall a Zappos story that talked about going the extra mile for a customer.
Tony Hsieh, who was CEO of online retailer Zappos, had said Zappos’ customer service is great, but he had also put it in a context that stays with you. In one instance, Hsieh narrated the story of a woman who’d ordered a pair of boots for her husband, only to contact Zappos shortly after, to arrange for the boots to be returned and to get a refund. Her husband, it turned out, had been killed in a car crash. According to Hsieh, after the refund was processed, the customer service executive sent a big bouquet to the woman and charged it to the company, without prior authorization. That’s because—and this is the point—the executive didn’t need one. Zappos’ culture is such that employees have the autonomy to do ‘what’s right’ for the customer. While Zappos lost money on that transaction, the affection that rolled in from others who had heard the story, including the widow’s friends, helped reinforce Zappos’s reputation as a company with a truly customer-oriented culture.
Research has confirmed that human tendency is to think and make sense of the world in terms of stories. Evolve your own story today to establish your service excellence.
No Comments