The Customer Revolution in Customer Service: David Bequette at TEDxYerevan

oh he may be disappointed with my talk
in the direction that it's gonna go but
we'll see all right I'm a hands guy so
just real quick raise your hand if
you've heard the term customer service
everybody should raise their hand
everybody okay
now the real question is is do you know
what customer service means or do you
know what the components of customer
services when we think of customer
service typically we think of this
smiling happy customers walking out of a
cafe or or any industry for that matter
happy with the service that they got but
in reality for the last 20 years we've
talked a lot about customer service but
we've really in the developing world we
really haven't looked at the components
of customer service they're really the
two beings the entities that are
involved in that customer and the
service personnel so I'm really gonna
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about
the history of not only the modern world
or Western world but also the developing
world and where we are with customer
service to do that there we go
to do that we have to look at why this
subject is important first of all
ninety-six percent of new jobs in the
world are going to be in the customer
service industry meaning all us
everybody in here is going to have
family members or relatives that are
going to be working in customer service
so this is a very important topic to
understand my my journey in this topic
we're gonna start with a year ago a year
ago I moved my family here to Yerevan
Armenia permanently and I was here I was
I was I was hired to take over a chain
of restaurants here and cafes here in
Armenia and really bring Western
concepts and I thought you know what
this is gonna be easy I'm from the West
you know we know all about customer
service we're going to really knock this
out so what I really found was I was
wrong there was a big piece of that
puzzle that was missing and and this is
where it where it all begins
every morning I took the metro that's a
picture of the Metro right there you
have on Metro to to work
every morning and that that picture was
probably took in yesterday but is looks
the same as 20 years ago and so do the
people in there so I would walk up to
the counter put my hundred drums Bottas
s then the lady would look at me and but
they were angry they look like they
hated their life they hated their job
they hated me and they threw the the
orange token and I said Anna and I
walked off so I decided to play late
play a little game which ended up being
a month long case study every morning
when I walked up I walked up as an
American vadas s yeah and the lady
looked at me shocked and gave me my my
token and she looks over at security and
I thought to myself man I'm really in
trouble now now they're probably going
to call security
I look suspicious but I did this I did
this day in day out and after a couple
weeks I noticed some change the lady
started greeting me they started saying
about us and after her after an entire
month I actually got a little bit of a
smile now most people would say well
what does this have to do with customer
service it has everything to do with
customer service it's about building
relationships and how important it is as
a customer to be a part of that
relationship process too so to
understand a little bit about where the
West is in customer service we have to
look at the economic history of the West
and then I'm going to tie you into where
we are in Armenia and in the developing
world first of all we have the
Industrial Revolution we're from 1750 to
1850 this is when new practices were
being implemented in the machinery in
the production line really making things
faster and getting things faster to the
customer then we have the Second
Industrial Revolution which this is
where things got really fast this is
actually when Henry Ford got involved
and started producing cars we all know
the Ford company and then we have what's
called the service revolution early
1900s this was also defined by Henry
Ford and what Henry Ford decided was if
we're going to create a product why not
service it why not actually give
customers the opportunity to bring it
back and
fix it and this was very revolutionary
and then finally we have what's called
the customer service revolution and this
is this is coming from all the way from
the 1980s all the way up to present but
mind you this is happening only only in
the West and I'm going to define why
that's happening only in the do it in to
us this is where you have HR departments
this is where you have customer service
training you have restaurants doing mass
training teaching people how to react
with their customers and everything else
so to understand why this isn't
happening here in the developing world
we need to take a little history lesson
and to do that let's look at our mania
and to look at our mania I I read this
book or we had to have this book of
travelers talking about the Armenians
throughout the Honor Ottoman Empire and
it goes into the early history of the
Ottoman Empire and it talks about
Armenians being warm being welcoming
being service-oriented being nannies
being owning cafes and restaurants and
then as time went on the words in the
descriptive language from the traveler
started to change terms such as cunning
such as intelligence such as
manipulative now that's not a positive
word such as tax evasion such as and we
have to understand that this was
happening during a period in the Ottoman
Empire when heavy taxes were placed upon
people of different ethnicities and
different religions so the Armenians and
the other minorities started moving away
from the service industry started
putting more emphasis on other things
then the descriptive languages started
talking about merchants traders
businessmen doctors lawyers more
educated more higher level things things
that were putting families away from the
service industry so we get to modern day
if things haven't changed much
Romania went through a dark period and
so did most of the caucuses with the
Soviet Union and then the collapse of
the Soviet Union and basically what we
have now is the same mentality this
mentality that the service industry is
below us that you know it's better to
get an education they work
while you're doing education or before
you're doing education is below you and
families start talking about all these
three things here you have a service
industry with skilled labor that lacks
proper customer service training you've
got a customer base that looks down on
individuals okay and this takes a toll
on the and the development of nations
now we look at the West
what is the West half well the West has
relationship based customer service this
means that customer respects the service
it attended just as much as the service
attendance is supposed to respect the
customer you have a mutual respect okay
this means both know that they're all
going in the same direction that
nobody's below or above or at any other
level and then you have obviously the
customers king well this is easy to
treat the customers king when you feel
respected as a service attendant okay so
the principle that were taught in the in
the West that many CEOs are now training
their their employees on and this is
going to make a lot of people mad here
is called a waiter rule and the simple
thesis of the waiter rule is if a person
is nice to you but they're not nice to
their waiter they're not a nice person
now think about you have all sat
alongside of someone who treats their
service personnel bad here you've all
felt in because they have been taught by
their society by their families that
being in the service industry is is
below them that their kids are too good
for it
that they're not that they cannot treat
that person with the same respect now it
sounds a little harsh but it's true
so to understand a little bit why
there's so much importance put on the
service industry and why there's so much
importance in work let's still go take a
look at some service industry standouts
we've got Charles again beyond he's
former CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank what
people don't know about him is that he
worked in the stockroom in the service
department of Chase Manhattan all the
way up to the top so he didn't go get a
great education and they'll go become a
manager he worked before he finished his
education he got the he raised himself
up through the the rings of the ladder
then you have Richard Avedon chiong he
invented modern futures what most people
don't know about him is he worked as an
assistant at carpet store and along the
way many other service jobs and all the
time I'm sure his parents were telling
him why are you doing this it's below
you you're never gonna get anything if
you're working in a carpet store well he
showed them obviously we all know this
guy Kirk Kerkorian he's an entrepreneur
but he also worked selling and
installing heater units before he ever
became a multi-millionaire obviously
Warren Buffett grocery store attendant
and many others and I placed a bunch of
men here but there's also women I want
to point that out
very important okay now why is this all
so much is so important okay why is this
important because we have three things
that we need to talk to there's a
million ways to fix all this there's a
million ways to make you a better
customer but I'm going to talk about
three different periods I'm going to
talk about first of all businesses
businesses if you're an entrepreneur or
a business owner start treating your
people like they're your family but
they're not a below you that they're
part of what you do they're a part of
your income generation and they will in
turn treat the customer with that same
relationship then most importantly I
want to talk to families I'm not here to
change Armenians or Armenian families
but we are in a different modern era we
are in a modern era where success takes
a different quotient now I'm gonna do
the hand thing again if I were to tell
you
that your son or daughter has a 90 90
percent chance of financial success that
they listen to me right now would you
let them listen to me just raise your
hand most people should raise their hand
it's a factual thing then 90 percent of
people that work before and during
college move on to financial success 9
out of 10 so knowing that would you
still tell your child that they're too
good to be a serve a waiter or waitress
would you still tell your child that
they can't do that because they need to
be concentrating on their education you
know my wife is a PhD student at
Cambridge she's probably gonna get in
trouble for this
her father still doesn't know she's a
she's a PhD student Cambridge while she
was doing her master's degree for a year
in London she worked as a waitress and
to this day she's afraid to tell her
father but she will tell you that that
one year of experience was better or
more important in the social atmosphere
than any of her college degrees that's
pretty powerful and then let's talk to
individuals guys if there's one thing I
want you to walk away with today is
remember that's fuse by Dave Beckett
whether you believe it or not and go
into your next restaurant or cafe
remember the way to rule and treat
everybody with respect try it fake it if
you don't even feel like it is if it's
so ingrained in you that you can't get
it out of you if you can't look at that
later and go I respect you then at least
fake it you know alright guys thank you
so much
[Applause]
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