I know so many people are fond of quoting the Golden Rule when thinking about customer experience or service - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - but I cringe every time I see or hear it. The arrogance! Laziness!! Downright gauche!!! Let's just unpack that a little. I don't even want to get into "unto" right now, so I'll focus on the meaning. Instead of taking the time to find out what the customer wants/needs or how they want to be treated, one is supposed to just assume they'll be hunky dory with whatever it is that floats your boat. Hold on sailor, what makes you so hot to trot?
The discipline of customer experience teaches us to listen to what our customers need/want and, hopefully, exceed their expectations. How can we accomplish this when we are stuck thinking about what we want out of the situation?
For the totally uninitiated (and unempathetic) or in situations where it's not possible to discern what the customer wants, what I think the Golden Rule is trying - but fails - to say is that little human decency goes a long way.
Bryan K. Williams has coined the term "Double Platinum Rule" to make up for the shortcomings of its less precious cousin:
Grounding your service strategy in the three Universal Service Rules works well, because it heightens your empathy (Golden Rule), encourages a keen focus on your customer’s expectations (Platinum Rule), and challenges you to consistently think of ways to exceed those expectations (Double Platinum Rule).
For the social sector, the Double Platinum Rule makes even more sense. So often our customers are people who have incredible and complex needs that if we only addressed the one initial thing that drove them to request our services, we would be shortchanging them, tarnishing our efforts to make a difference in this world.
How might you introduce this thinking at your organization?
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