Likes and Dislikes
Founder and Managing Member Ron Slee talks about the significance of like and dislikes when highlighting the ways we listen to our customers.
We Listen to our Customers.
We are all in the customer service business. Everyone that I know and have worked with is in a constant state of asking for help. We all ask our customers – what do you need and want from us.
In the Employee Development world, we have to listen many different influencers. The education world as to what the latest and greatest advancements in learning and retention of skills and knowledge. The Learning Management Software world to a stay current with everything going on in internet-based teaching tools. The Dealer Business Systems to be aware of the latest developments in what operational tools are available to dealers, wholesalers, manufacturers and OEM’s so that our subject specific classes are always exposing our students to what systems and processes they will be working with. The specialized software suppliers from Sales Force and CRM, Telematics and Sensors in equipment that can monitor the health of a specific piece of equipment, Maintenance tools to determine when each service interval is expected and schedule parts, labor and equipment to be available when necessary. Artificial Intelligence and all of the Data Management tools to allow information to be obtained that is useful and timely. And many more.
Most importantly we want to listen to our CUSTOMERS.
I learned that early in my life when I was being coached as a swimmer. My coach was constantly asking me to do different things with my head, my arms, my hands, my legs, my hips and my feet. He was looking for the right place for my body in the water for all of these “things.” I would be giving him my feedback and the clock would be giving us another piece of information.
It seemed so natural to me to ask questions. Then when I started teaching, I was constantly asking questions. I didn’t think anything of it until one of my bosses told me that I was using the “Socratic Method” in teaching. I had to research that and found he was right. I never really gave my class the answers to the questions I was asking. I would keep asking questions and in the dialogue that we had, teacher and students, we would come up with the answer together. I thought then, and continue to think the same today, this is the way that I would teach and that this method was a better learning tool for my students.
In my years at dealerships, I was probably a real pain as I was constantly asking why. Why do we do it this way? Why not this way? I used to ask my team members what they liked about how I worked with them. What they liked, what they didn’t like, and what didn’t matter.
When I started in our Consulting business nothing changed, although it was now expected with the job that there would be questions.
It seems that I like to know what other people are thinking about almost everything that they deal with in their lives.
When we set up our first employee development business, Quest, Learning Centers, in 1994 I started with the creation of our textbooks and our class structures. Then I ASKED. I asked a group of executives and owners and managers to come to a class that I had created, at their expense, and get their feedback. Our first classes were three days long, it was twenty-four hours of learning. We called it “What it Looks Like When it is Right.” After all the discussions and suggestions and comments we ended up with two-day classes providing fifteen ours of learning. I will be forever grateful to those individuals for their help.
Today we offer Blogs, Podcasts, Newsletters, Audio Learning and Suggested Reading Lists as Resources to our students, our CUSTOMERS. We now have at the bottom of each screen a question for the reader
It’s a LIKE button, for feedback – thumbs up or down.
I most humbly ask each of you to let us know what you think. It would be really very helpful. You will see this on most every page that you could look at on the website.
The Time is Now.
Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.