Pattern for Excellence. Brigham Dickinson
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the Pattern for Excellence increases your awareness, you more easily empathize and show understanding. You adapt quickly to create WOW Experiences. You come to genuinely care about your customers. As you master the Pattern, its attitudes, principles, and practices will come naturally and authentically.
Let’s Get Started
As we embark on this journey together, I will draw on lessons learned from the past and use personal experiences to show the importance of each principle found in the Pattern’s framework. I ask that you consider what you know to be true about each principle taught and write it down. Drawing on your own experience as it relates to the stories and examples I share, consider an action plan that will turn what you know and believe into a habit.
By the time you complete this writing exercise, you will have the tools needed to master the Pattern for Excellence. You will become more aware and persuasive in your communication. You will get more done in less time and increase your ability to create WOW Experiences for your customers.
As you implement the Pattern, you experience more fulfillment in your work. And, as a byproduct, you attract more opportunity to your business, make more money, and become an indispensable part of any organization or within your own business.
Ask yourself: Do you see your work as a set of tasks to be completed, or is there something bigger at play that helps you enjoy the work that you do? If it is the latter, GREAT, but why? If it is not, why not? What steps can you take to transition from seeing your work as an obligation to seeing it as a principle-centered service opportunity? When will you take those steps? How can you create the conditions and culture that give you the opportunity to do your best work? Take a few minutes before you go on to answer those questions. It helps to identify your “Why.”
The Pattern for Excellence provides a framework that you can use to find fulfillment and happiness at work. The Pattern for Excellence focuses on the Outcome: Why; Principles: What; and Applications: How.
“The goal of life is not really space travel, backyard swimming pools, glider planes, entertainment extravaganzas, big, fast cars, or thrill pills. What human beings are really seeking is individual happiness, self-realization.”
—W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap
Focus on eight Master Principles
Great customer service is all the rage right now! Well-known companies like Zappos, Chick-Fil-A, and
Southwest Airlines have experienced incredible growth because they’ve learned how to deliver phenomenal customer service consistently to their customers in addition to their quality product.
How do they constantly deliver what we now know as the WOW Experience? They master the art of making timely applications of timeless principles. Mandated policies and procedures usually stipulate one acceptable application. In contrast, principles enable you to make endless applications. The Pattern for Excellence is a principle-based framework for learning best practices in delivering phenomenal service. While applying these principles, you will experience autonomy within yourself and your organization and create your best practices.
For example, what do you do when a customer approaches you with a bad experience? Notice I didn’t ask about your company because it is not as much about the company as it is about you. It is you the customer is approaching, and from you, they expect results. At Zappos, their purpose is not to deliver shoes; rather, it is to deliver happiness to their customer. Zappos employees take ownership of a customer’s bad experience, independently of whether or not they are personally involved because they emotionally connect with their company’s purpose. They have found their Why, and it drives them to create WOW Experiences.
What drives you personally to go above and beyond to restore that customer’s trust, friendship, and business?
Eight Master Principles
I am often asked three questions: 1) why these eight principles, 2) why this sequence, and 3) how these principles in this sequence constitute a Pattern for Excellence in both sales and customer service.
The Master Principles are listed in a particular sequence around the Pattern’s end goal. Each principle in the Pattern is needed and carries equal weight in creating WOW Experiences.
1. Be Positive – Powerful Interpersonal Energy
Is your passion for the work you do electric and contagious? This principle refers to your attitude toward your work, as manifested in your ability to transmit powerful interpersonal energy with a smile or in the way you go about tirelessly creating unique customer experiences over and over again. Passion for your work also shows through in the amazing service you provide. To say that you need to learn to be positive has become cliché, perhaps because most people have it backward. A clear company vision drives individual behavior. A positive attitude toward what you do for a living is the fruit or byproduct of that vision. Your attitude becomes electric and contagious because to you, the “work” is a cause for which you are willing to fight.
2. Be Confident – Prepared to WOW
Are you practiced and prepared in the work that you do? Your attitude towards your work can only go so far without mastering the mechanics behind it. You need to refine the mechanics to the point where your service looks and feels like magic. Continual training and coaching enable you to work effectively with your peers and learn how to create WOW Experiences. How often do you work on the game that you play as opposed to just playing in it? There is a big difference between professional athletes and their fans. Like professional athletes, you must be practiced and well prepared before the game. Be constantly learning and improving skills. Continual preparation and practice will give you confidence. This swagger, in turn, will make it much easier for customers to believe in your company as well as the services you provide and perpetuate the relationship. With practice and preparation, you can hone your interpersonal skills to create WOW Experiences consistently.
3. Listen – Become Present First
Do you connect by listening first, and by remaining present? This means understanding the expression, tone, and intent of others. Active listening is difficult, even for the greatest of salespersons. Thinking about what to say next as you wait for the customer to stop talking is not active listening. You have to get your mind right by minimizing the conversation going on in your head while others are talking. Just ask yourself if you know what I mean—and you’ll know what I’m saying. To be present requires that we turn off the chatter in our heads and requires us to be in a highly aware state. Pay attention to your customer’s words and phrases as well as the tone and intent behind their words. Be clear on what they want as well as the experience they are looking for when working with you and your company. Rephrase the content you receive in your words to show that you understand, and ask additional questions to make sure you align with what the customer wants. To create value and a WOW Experience for your customers, you have to understand what is most important to them first. That is what active listening is all about.
4. Care – Respect Individual Worth
Others can connect and become present as you show genuine empathy and respect for their worth. Do you give others the opportunity to connect with you? Do you show them that you care? People need to feel your sincere concern for them and their situation. They don’t want to feel unworthy or less than around you. The inability to connect often occurs when you cannot seem to relate. The word awkward has become more prevalent because we seldom understand why others speak or act differently than us. Even when we try to show