>>Female Presenter: Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you all for joining us for today's Authors
at Google talk.
It is my pleasure to introduce you to our
speaker today.
I think you guys already know him, now, Mr.
Ron Kaufman.
Ron is the world's leading educator and motivator
for uplifting customer service and uplifting
service cultures.
He is author of the book Uplifting Service
and 14 other books on service, business, and
inspiration.
Ron is rated one of the world's top 25 hot
speakers by Speaker Magazine for his high
energy and high content presentations.
He has been featured in the New York Times,
the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and on
TV.
Please join me in welcoming Mr. Ron Kaufman.
[cheers] [applause]
>>Ron Kaufman Thank you very much.
Great to be here at Google.
Thank you so much for this hour of your time.
I want to jump right in.
The book that you got a copy of is called
Uplifting Service.
While I'm based in Singapore, the reason my
wife and I are in New York is because on this
Sunday, you'll see it published in the New
York Times Bestseller List.
The book expo's here in New York, so we hit.
That's a three year project that's finally
come to fruition.
This is all I do.
I travel around the world with my wife, doing
uplifting service, coaching, consulting, training,
working with some of the largest companies
in the world.
That is a picture of my passport.
[light laughter] Yeah, holy moly, right?
It's actually at the point now where immigration
officers look at it and look back up and look
down.
The reason is that I'm one of these people
who, from a very early age, was driven out
there in the world to do things with other
people.
This is a picture of the Brown University
ultimate Frisbee team.
I show you this picture because it demonstrates
that at one point, I did have hair.
[laughter] But it also points to two other
very interesting people who were on the team.
For example, I became a domain expert in service
leadership and in building service cultures,
but this fellow right here in the front row,
does anybody recognize him?
His name is James Garvin.
He's chief scientist for NASA exploration.
When the Mars things went up, this is Jim.
More interesting.
Who is this guy?
That gentlemen on the Brown University ultimate
Frisbee team is Peter Norvig, who was the
Google Director of Search Quality and now
is your Director of Search.
Join me in giving ultimate Frisbee a big clap
for the impact that we've had in the world.
[applause]
This person is the one who really has a big
impact on my life.
It's my wife.
Her name is Jan.
She and I scuba together, we travel together,
we get the pleasure of working in different
places like the World Bank together.
She's sitting right here in the back of the
room.
Would you join me in giving her a big clap,
because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for
her.
[applause]
All right.
This is actually the mission that I'm on.
People say, "Ron is a man on a mission."
It's true.
I am committed to uplifting the quality and
the spirit and the practice of service all
over the world.
I think one of the problems that we have today
is it's not being taught.
If you think about the education you got,
if you're in this room, you're a well-educated
person.
You learned whatever you learned, but I'll
bet none of you actually ever took a class
on the fundamental principles of service,
or how to develop a strong service culture,
or how to differentiate an organization based
on quality of service.
That's what it is that we're really bringing
around the world.
I was fortunate because I studied with this
gentlemen for 7 years after college.
His name is Fernando Flores.
He's an expert in something called ontological
design.
Two of his protégés, Chauncey Bell and Chris
Davis, I attribute to them me becoming a different
kind of observer in the world.
What is ontological design?
Fundamentally, what are the fundamental linguistic
distinctions and the standard practices that
enable competent action in some domain?
I can't talk like that with most people in
business, but here at Google, I think I can.
When I look at something, like, "How does
service work?" or "How do you optimize search?"
or whatever it is, if you know what the fundamental
distinctions are, and the standard practices,
and you know the strategies of those that
do it well, then potentially, it could become
replicated.
That underpinning has caused me to look at
the real leaders in service: Singapore Airlines,
Ritz Carlton hotels, Zappos, Apple Computer.
What are they doing?
But not anecdotally, like, "They have a genius
bar and a beautiful building that was designed
by Steve Jobs."
Not like that.
But fundamentally engineering wise, how are
they building out that kind of a culture.
That's what I've written about in the book,
and I'm going to give you a brief presentation
of it today.
I've been living in Singapore for more than
two decades.
I moved there because this whole country was
wrestling with the issue of how to develop
a service culture, and they had to, for economic
necessity.
Back in 1980s and 1990s, all the manufacturing
left and went to China.
All the back office processing went to the
low-cost locations like India and the Philippines,
and now even moving to Bangladesh.
So Singapore had to reinvent itself to still
create value in the world.
And they succeeded.
They already had one particular iconic example.
Has anybody here ever flown on this airline?
Okay, did you have a good experience?
>>female #1: Yes.
>>Kaufman: I mean to the point where people
are willing to pay more, a higher premium,
to fly on exactly the same route at just about
the same time.
The aircraft itself will fly at a higher yield,
that means there's more people on board, than
the other carriers, which is why Singapore
Airlines today has $6 billion in cash reserves
in an industry where airlines go out of business
on a regular basis.
It's not because they have better aircraft.
That airbus can be purchased by Emirates and
Cathay Pacific and British Airways.
It's not because they use better airports
or better travel agents, or even a better
website.
It's because they differentiated based on
the quality of their--
>>female#2: Service.
>>Kaufman: Service, right.
They've even created an icon for it.
They call it the Singapore girl.
I've been working with them for 20 years,
so I know what it is that they've done.
I've seen underneath the covers what's the
architecture that they're using to engineer
that in a sustainable way over time.
This is a shot of Changi International Airport,
which is Singapore's airport and Singapore
Airlines' home base.
This is an interesting cultural situation,
where you need service to be delivered from
top to bottom, end to end, and across many
different organizations, because 40 million
people go through the airport.
Now, you go through airports.
Let's say you're at an airport somewhere and
you're lost, you have a question, you need
something.
Who will you ask for help?
Ready?
Turn to the person next to you, answer that
question.
You're in an airport, you're lost, 'where's
the gate, where's the post office'?
Who will you ask?
Talk to the person next to you.
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: All right, yell it out for me.
Who will you ask?
Who will you ask?
>>male #1: The first person I see in any kind
of uniform.
>>Kaufman: The first person you see in any
kind of uniform.
You don't care if it's the police and you're
asking for the post office.
You don't care if you're at the post office
and you're asking where's the gate.
So they needed to create a culture where every
single one of the 28,000 people that work
there would take responsibility for the quality
of the customer experience.
They've done that very successfully.
They've got a phrase, 'many partners, many
missions, but there's only one Changi'.
Now, I've been working with them for a really
long time, and I know how they do it.
They've solved this problem, which many large
organizations have, of what I call a confused
culture.
We recruit this kind of person, but we give
bonuses for this kind of a thing.
The marketing promise is like that, but the
actual customer service experience is like
this.
That's confusing for people who work in a
large organization.
All Singapore Airlines has done, all the Ritz
Carlton has done, all Zappos has done, is
they've lined it up.
They've taken away the confusion, and they've
done the same things that other organizations
are doing, but in sync with one another to
create a certain impact.
I'm going to show you the architecture of
how that works.
Let's start by asking you to talk to the person
next to you.
Should be a very simple question.
Google was actually-- It's a service business.
You're providing things for people, right?
You're giving them answers, giving them ad
space.
You're giving them what they need.
So what is the definition of service?
Please talk to your partner.
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Okay, come on back.
Let me ask: did you and your partner turn
to each other and then immediately share exactly
the same words?
>>male #2: No.
>>Kaufman: No.
So if I passed out cards here, and everybody
wrote down their definition.
Let's say there are 60 people in the room.
You handed in the cards.
How many definitions would I have?
>>male #3: 60.
>>Kaufman: 65, right?
[laughter] That's a problem in the world today.
It shows how fundamental the problem is, because
even something as basic as "What is service?"
[snaps] we're not being taught.
People are going, "Well, it's the customer
wants, and what he needs.
It's exceeding and delighting."
That gets really fuzzy.
It doesn't need to be that way.
Here's a definition that I use, and I introduce
in the book, right at the beginning.
Service is taking action.
Would you agree?
Right.
In order-- Service doesn't sit in a box.
Somebody's got to do something to take action.
What's the purpose of taking the action?
>>male #4: To meet some need.
>>Kaufman: To meet some need, to give somebody
what they want, to satisfy, to delight, to
create some what?
>>Several audience members: Some value.
>>Kaufman: Some value.
The purpose of the action has got to be to
create some value for someone else, unless
it's self-service.
Let's just pause for a second.
Does this definition adequately describe what
you do?
You may be in tech, just keeping other people's
computers running.
You may actually be working with advertisers.
You may be working with other websites.
You may be working with partners.
You may be working with-- Talk to your partner
for a second.
Does this simple definition of service, taking
action to create value for someone else, does
it apply to your job?
Talk to your partner.
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Absolutely.
Right?
Right.
However, a lot of people come to work, and
they say, "No, my job is just doing what's
on this checklist" or "Leave me alone.
I'm just doing my job" rather than understanding
that the purpose of doing the job is to create
some--
>>male #5: Value.
>>Kaufman: --value for somebody else.
What is service excellence?
What is a service culture?
How are these two things related to each other?
Because they're not the same.
Service excellence is a certain level of performance
in value created.
A service culture is something else.
Talk to your partner again.
What are these two things, and how are they
related to one another?
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Good.
Good, good, good.
Come on back, come on back.
I'm going to answer these in the next few
minutes.
Really [pause] dissolve the confusion that
people have.
So many people in the world and in business
today, they hear the word service, and they
say, "Oh, that's the soft stuff."
And then they hear the word culture, and they
go, "That's really airy-fairy."
I'm saying, "No, no, no.
Not to Singapore Airlines, it's not.
Not to Ritz Carlton, it's not.
Not to Apple Computer, it's not.
Not to Google, it's not."
You've got to really understand what this
is and how to build it.
That's the big question: how do you actually
build a culture of uplifting service and make
it stronger and stronger and sustainable over
time?
That's what my career has really been about,
is identifying what is the plan, what is the
architecture, how do you engineer this thing
so it's not just up to a charismatic leader?
I'm going to go back and use a very old architecture
that's been influencing human behavior for
a long time.
The components are clear: there's got to be
a leadership element, people who are driving
an organization in a certain direction with
their personal example and things that they
do inside the organization.
There's an educational component, which is
not the same as training.
We'll come to that in a second.
And in the middle is this interesting area
called building blocks, that I'll point to
at the end of this presentation.
Okay?
Let's start at the base.
What is the difference between education and
training?
They're not the same.
Take a moment, talk to your partner.
What's the difference between education and
training?
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Very good.
Very good.
Training is what?
>>male #6: Stuff that happens
>>Kaufman: Yeah, exactly.
You can train someone what to do, and you
want them to be well trained in a certain
situation where they need to do the--
>>male #6: Right thing.
>>Kaufman: Right thing.
Right.
But education's different.
Education is teaching people how to think,
so they can figure out what to--
>>male #6: [inaudible]
>>Kaufman: Do.
Right.
If you have children, do you just want them
to be really well trained?
You want them to be educated, right?
Customer service training has a fundamental
flaw: it's good in certain situations where
you need someone to absolutely follow the
checklist.
But if all we're providing in the world today
is training about what to do, what happens
when the customer shows up with a new situation
you haven't seen before?
It gets escalated up the chain, becomes a
bottleneck.
That's that point I was saying about we need
fundamental education for service in the world
today.
Now, training is fine sometimes.
Yeah.
My wife and I have a friend who's a former
US Marine.
He's been in combat.
He said, "When the bullets are flying, you
stop thinking.
But your body knows what to do because it's
been--"
>>female #3: Trained.
>>Kaufman: That's why they go to boot camp.
When this guy takes a machine up in the air,
and he's got hundreds of passengers in the
back, I don't want him to do creative thinking.
[laughter] Right?
Which is why-- We put them in a simulator
and we throw tough situations so they will
become well--
>>male #7: Trained.
>>Kaufman: That's why no one died.
Because when the geese hit the engines, the
pilot and the copilot both immediately went
to the checklist and did what they were--
>>male #8: Trained.
>>Kaufman: Trained and told to do.
Their bodies knew how to do it.
If this guy goes in on you, don't ask him
to think out of the box.
[laughter] But in business, we need people
who can come up with new ideas.
We need people who can solve problems we've
never seen before, and innovate to come up
with new ways to create value.
We want people who can make a decision on
the spot and have it be a good decision without
having to bring it to somebody else.
We find that the way that happens is that
when you get a chance to work on this and
talk about it with other people.
And personally, I believe it should be uplifting,
if the topic is service, because there is
a skills set component, but there's also a
mindset, or an attitudinal component.
You agree?
You're customers, you're service providers,
you get what I'm saying.
So let's do this right now.
Would you turn to your partner and just say,
"Thank you for being my partner."
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Good.
Now, would you do this.
Please rub your hands together.
[rubbing noise] Rub your hands together, here
we go.
Clap twice.
[clapping] Hands up.
Turn to your partner.
Give him a high five.
Say, "Thanks for being my partner."
[clapping] [audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Could you feel the difference?
Did it feel better or worse.
>>male #9: Better.
>>Kaufman: Better, right?
It was still a thank you, but it was done
with a different-- [snaps]
>>male #9: Attitude.
>>Kaufman: Yeah.
I'm going to demonstrate for you now a piece
of fundamental service education.
Six levels of service.
We're going to start low.
The word is--
>>female #4: Basic.
>>Kaufman: Basic.
Definition of the word, please.
Talk to your partner.
10 seconds.
Basic means what?
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Go.
Basic is the--
>>male #10: Minimum.
>>Kaufman: --fundamental, the--
>>male #10: Minimum.
>>Kaufman: Yeah, basic means basic.
Thank you.
[laughter] That's basic.
It's a minimum.
But I call it the bare minimum.
A good example, and we experienced it the
other day, is a taxi that smells bad, with
a driver who's in a bad mood, who's a bad
driver.
But he gets you where you want to go.
Ever happen to you?
That level we're going to call basic.
Here's how to say it.
[low, drawn out voice] Basic.
Stay with me.
One, two, three.
Go.
>>people audience: Basic.
>>Kaufman: How do you feel?
Bleugh.
Okay, let's not stay there.
Let's take a step up.
One step above basic is expected.
It's normal.
Average.
If you tell the driver where you want to go,
do you expect that he knows how to get there?
>>audience: Yes.
>>Kaufman: Does it always happen?
>>audience: No.
>>Kaufman: Do you ever get a driver that says,
"Where do you want to go?", you tell him,
and he says, "Where's that?"
>>male #11: Yeah.
>>Kaufman: The moment he says, "Where's that?"
where does your mood go?
Up or down?
>>audience: Down.
>>Kaufman: Drops, because he may go the long
way or the wrong way, or you've got to give
him directions.
Eventually, he gets you where you want to
go, so he does meet the--
>>audience: Basic.
>>Kaufman: --basic, but it's not what you--
>>audience: Expect.
>>Kaufman: Good.
What I want you to do is what this fellow's
already doing.
Cross your arms, please.
Cross your arms.
Take the sound of your voice, move it up in
your nose.
It goes like this: [nasally voice] expected.
Here you go.
One, two, three.
Go.
>>audience: Expected.
>>Kaufman: Good.
Sounds like finance departments.
[laughter] Okay, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
What is higher than [nasally voice] expected?
Oh, and by the way, what is the traditional
definition of customer satisfaction?
Meeting customer--
>>audience: Expectations.
>>Kaufman: --expectations.
Look how low that is on the scale.
So what is one step higher?
It's when you serve someone the way they like
it.
They way they hope for it.
The way they prefer it.
The word I use is called--
>>audience: Desire.
>>Kaufman: Desire, right?
So that's getting the clean taxi with the
friendly taxi driver with the guy-- right?
When you get it, you go, "Ah!
That's what I was hoping for.
That's what I--"
>>audience: Desire.
>>Kaufman: Desire.
Okay, now, here's how you say this one.
Shoulders, please.
Like this-- Your shoulder's broken?
Come on.
There you go.
Now you add the sound.
It goes like this: [starts low, ends high]
Desire.
Give it a shot.
[laughter] One, two, three.
Here we go.
Go.
>>audience: Desire.
>>Kaufman: Come on, Googlers, one more time.
It's not on lunchtime.
One, two, three.
Go.
>>audience and Kaufman: Desire.
>>Kaufman: Good.
Tell your partner how well he did that.
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Now, let's just see if this is
relevant.
Let's do these three levels together.
Down low is--
>>audience and Kaufman: [low, drawn out voice]
Basic.
>>Kaufman: One level up, cross your arms.
>>audience and Kaufman: [nasally voice] Expected.
>>Kaufman: Shoulders.
[snaps]
>>audience: [start low, ends high] Desire.
>>Kaufman: What would be an example at Google?
What would be an example of something that
you do that someone else would say, "Ah yeah,
it was the bare minimum.
It was late.
It was incomplete.
It was slow.
It didn't have all the data that I could have
used."
What would be [nasally voice] expected?
Industry average?
Normal?
Oh, and then what would be the way they like
it?
That would cause them to say, "Ah, that's
what I was hoping for!
That's what I--"
>>audience: Desire.
>>Kaufman: Desire.
Okay, talk to your partner for a moment.
Go.
What's an example of that at Google?
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Good.
Good.
Okay.
Notice by the way that what you're describing
right now is someone else's experience with
what we do at Google, not what we do at Google.
Right?
It's not a checklist.
It's not a procedure.
It's not a KPI.
It's someone else's experience of that.
That becomes very clear when we take the next
step.
Above desire is the unexpected.
It's the one that you didn't know was coming.
I call it [voice squeaks] surprising.
Okay.
The way you say it is like getting a gift,
with your hands like this.
[voice squeaks] Surprising.
Try it.
One, two, three.
Here we go.
>>audience: [voices squeak] Surprising.
>>Kaufman: [voice squeaks] Surprising.
Very good.
Has anybody ever bought you a gift, wrapped
it up, brought it to the party, birthday,
holiday.
You opened it, and when you saw what it was,
you were genuinely surprised.
[squeaks] Ever happened?
[laugher] Ever happened?
>>male #12: Not exactly that sound.
>>Kaufman: Not exactly that sound.
[laughter] But okay, you got the surprise.
Now.
Has anybody ever given you a gift.
They bought it, they wrapped it up, they brought
it to the party.
But when you opened it up, and you saw what
it was, you went, "Eheh." [laughter] Hmm?
And then, to be polite, you pretended to be
surprised.
Okay, now what was the difference between
those two things?
In both cases, whoever bought it for you intended
to surprise you.
In one case, [squeaks] it worked.
In the other case, eheh, it didn't.
What was the fundamental difference?
Talk to your partner.
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: The difference, the fundamental
difference, was whether or not the person
who bought that for you understood what you--
>>audience: Wanted.
>>Kaufman: Not necessarily what you wanted
or what you expected, because if you already
wanted it, you already expected it, it wasn't
a--
>>audience: Surprise.
>>Kaufman: [voice squeaks] Surprise.
If they understood, though, what you v-v-v--
>>audience: Value.
>>Kaufman: --value, and they put some creative
thought into it: "If she values this and I
do that, aha!"
A nice surprise.
On the other hand, when the experience is
"eheh", maybe they got you something they
value.
Maybe they got you something that you used
to value, but they haven't stayed current.
I guess it would be like if you had a data
to understand somebody's needs and interest,
and they weren't really current, and you're
still serving up to them some results that
was what they were interested in before, they're
not going, "Oh, what a surprise!"
They're going, "Boy, are you out of date."
Now, the level of service above surprising
is really where you astonish.
It's extraordinary.
The world I use for this is unbelievable.
We're not going to demonstrate it yet because
I want to go below basic.
What is below basic?
It's terrible.
It's awful.
It's horrible.
It's so bad, I call it--
>>female #5: Criminal.
>>Kaufman: --criminal.
Right.
I don't mean break the law, but I mean you
broke a promise.
Like there's a service brand.
There's a marketing promise there.
There's an expectation there.
And you violate it.
They way you say this one at the bottom is
you put your hands together like handcuffs,
please.
Here we go.
So you did that quickly.
[laughter] Priors.
[laughter] Hands together.
Just go like this.
[gravely low voice] Criminal.
Here we go.
One, two, three.
And:
>>audience and Kaufman: [gravely low voice]
Criminal.
>>Kaufman: One step up.
>>audience and Kaufman: [low, drawn out voice]
Basic.
>>Kaufman: Cross your arms.
>>audience and Kaufman: [nasally voice] Expected.
>>Kaufman: Shoulders.
>>audience and Kaufman: [start low, ends high]
Desire.
>>Kaufman: Hands.
>>audience: [voices squeak] Surprising.
>>Kaufman: And fifth, here we go.
Un--
>>audience: Unbelievable.
>>Kaufman: I got a back row here, they're
going, [voice fades out] "Unbelievable."
[laughter] That's a basic unbelievable.
Come on.
Google, give me one unbelievable unbelievable.
One, two, three, and:
>>audience: [loudly] Unbelievable.
>>Kaufman: Good.
How is the service at Google?
>>audience: Unbelievable.
[laughter]
>>Kaufman: I admire your enthusiasm.
[laughter] What would our customers say?
What would the people you serve say?
If you're an internal service provider, you
work with colleagues in California and in
another part of the world in another group.
If you're an external service provider, if
you're working with Google partners, what
would they say?
What would their experience be of the quality
of service, the value that you create for
them?
Ready?
Turn to your partner.
Six levels of service.
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Aha.
Hold on, hold on.
Now it gets more tricky.
Now it gets more tricky.
We say, "We are committed to service excellence."
A lot of organizations say that, so let me
ask you the question: where is excellence
on these six levels of service?
It's not one of the six words.
But you get the question I'm asking you, right?
Where is excellence on these six levels?
Talk to your partner.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Okay, tell me.
Yell it out, please.
Excellence is--
>>male #13: Expected.
>>Kaufman: --expected.
Excellence is--
>>audience: Desired.
>>Kaufman: --desired.
Excellence is--
>>audience: Surprising.
>>Kaufman: --surprising.
Oh my God, how come all over the place?
The reason you can't just put your finger
on it is these six levels are not stairs like
they look.
This thing's an escalator.
It's constantly going down.
What I mean by that is that you come out with
something new, it's only new for a short period,
and then it's
>>male #13: Nice.
>>Kaufman: --nice.
Then nice becomes normal, and normal becomes
no big deal.
How many of you remember this? [laughter]
You laugh!
But when it first came out, it was--
>>audience: Unbelievable.
>>Kaufman: Unbelievable.
Today: [low, drawn out voice] Basic.
[laughter] So back to my question: if the
stairs keep slipping down, what does it mean
to be excellent on the six levels of service?
Where is excellence?
Talk to your partner.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Right.
Right.
Excellence has become a moving--
>>male #14: Target.
>>Kaufman: --target.
The only way, then, that you could be excellent
at Google or anywhere else in your life is
if you keep stepping--
>>audience: Up.
>>Kaufman: Up.
Okay, so now let's be definitional.
Remember ontological linguistic distinctions.
What is service excellence?
I challenge you in business in your life to
ask a lot of leaders that and see what kind
of a fluffy answer they come up with.
This is a grounded answer: service excellence
is taking the next step up to create more
value for someone else.
The service excellence culture is where every
single person comes to work every day and
says, "That's what I'm up to.
I'm not here doing my job, I'm not here following
a procedure.
I'm here taking some action that creates some
value.
If I stand still, by default, I'm going to
be--"
>>male #15: Going down.
>>Kaufman: Stepping down.
Especially in the competitive world that you
folks work in.
[pause] So I want you to apply this to your
job right now.
What would be an example of doing what you
do, but doing it a little bit differently,
and someone else would say, "Thanks, I appreciate
that.
That's better."
It might be something more proactive.
It might be better follow-up.
It could be greater flexibility.
It might be additional options.
I don't know.
But it's got to be something that the other
person will--
>>audience: Appreciate.
>>Kaufman: --appreciate and v-v-v--
>>audience: Value.
Okay?
Talk to your partner.
Apply this to your job, right now.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Good.
All right, Googlers, come on back.
Fundamental principle-- By the way, how old
do you think somebody needs to be to understand
that?
[pause] Catch it in your early teens, which
is where it should be taught.
Now, let's couple that principle with this
one: service is delivered in a sequence.
For example, I go to a web page and I type
in what I'm looking for.
I start to see results.
Then I click through.
Then I see if I can navigate easily to get
what I'm looking for.
Then I'm going to go back again, etc.
Da-da-da-da-da-da, at some point, I'm gone.
Same thing is true going to a restaurant,
same thing is true with most service in life.
Every one of those points is evaluated by
the person being served on those six levels
of service.
How many of those points need to be below
[nasally voice] expected to mess up a service
experience?
>>male #16: One.
>>Kaufman: One.
How many of them need to be [voice squeaks]
surprising?
Assuming all the rest are [nasally voice]
expected to make it a good experience?
>>audience: One.
>>Kaufman: Also one.
That's the power.
If you get everybody coming to work going,
"My job is to keep stepping up", you don't
need everybody to be surprising about everything
all day.
You need everybody looking for an opportunity
to surprise.
An example of that is at Changi Airport, where
they have the ambition to be known as one
of the friendliest airports in the world.
They have a critical transaction.
It's called arrivals.
It starts when the aircraft door opens and
it ends when the taxi door closes.
In between those two doors is an experience
that you have going through arrivals and immigration
and getting your bags and customs and taxi
lines.
One of those points was getting a low score
on the friendly scale.
It was causing a problem.
Which point do you think that might be?
Immigration.
It's not their job to be friendly.
[laughter] Right?
But Changi Airport wants to be and is the
most awarded airport on the planet, so they
analyzed it.
They dug in and they said, "Look, we've got
to get these guys to be more smiley and more
friendly and say nice things to 42 million
passengers a year?
Please."
In fact, they tried it and it was a problem
because then the line slowed down.
[laughter] So they innovated, and they took
another step up.
They actually did something very simple: on
every single one of the immigration counters,
they put one of these.
It's a box of candies.
Of breath mints.
And they changed the script for the immigration
officers.
All they have to say now when you walk up,
is they say, "Passport."
You hand it over and they say one word: "Sweet?"
42 million people: [voice squeaks] Oh!
Sweet.
Friendly score shot up.
Now, that's just a tiny example.
Just like improving something in a search
result or improving something on a web page
is a tiny example.
But it's the accumulation of those that produces
a powerful experience.
For example, at Changi Airport, if you're
carrying something that you're not allowed
to bring on board the aircraft, and it happens,
now you can mail it back to yourself on the
spot.
Solves a problem.
Turns a complaint into a differentiator.
You can have a butterfly experience at Changi
Airport in between your flights.
Go to-- There's a little botanic garden.
You just stand still, and butterflies will
come and land on you.
[laughter] What's that got to do with an airport?
Well, if you want to be the number 1 airport
in the world, you want to be stress-free,
surprising, personal.
What if you have kids?
Because they're not going to sit still for
a butterfly.
What you want to do is tire them out before
the next flight.
Take them to the indoor slide that's four
stories tall, that's the largest one in the
country, and for free, your kids can go up
and down and up and down and up and down,
so on the next flight, they will sleep.
Creating Value.
Monday morning, have a free coffee.
What's driving them is this: it's your experience.
It turns them on.
That's what they call their inspiration.
I know that at Google, you're doing it all
the time.
You've also got a B to C and a B to D model.
This is one of our web pages up in the front.
You'll see it when you go to the homepage
at Up Your Service.
That's from the butterfly garden.
Well, this is from Singapore Airlines.
That's B to C as well, for the most part,
except for cargo.
This is Marina Bay Sands, one of the new,
very large, integrated resorts that recently
opened in Singapore.
It's another B to C. Parkway Medical, another
one of the groups we're working with.
So in many different industries, they get
it about improving service.
But it's not only B to C.
This is a company called Vopak.
They are the largest oil and chemical storage
company in the world.
I want you to see what we've been doing with
them, what they've been doing with the same
simple models.
Now look at this.
They have taken what they do in the terminals,
and they've mapped it out.
This is what happens when a guest, one of
their customers, comes to visit the terminal.
Look how many points they identified.
Then, they drilled down under every one of
those points and said, "What would be criminal,
basic, expected, desired, surprising, or unbelievable
for the people visiting our terminal at every
one of those points?"
Oh, and then they did it again, for visiting
a customer at their office, which some of
you Googlers do.
Then they did it again, for getting a new
contract.
Then they did it again, for actually executing
on the business that they're all about.
Then they did it again, even for handling
customer feedback.
Can you imagine the number of innovative improvements
they were able to identify?
And that's just two of the simple models that
I've shown you here.
Every single perception point is evaluated
on the six levels of service, and it's always
slipping down.
So that first model, second model, third,
fourth, and fifth, constitute a fundamental
set of service education, that you can learn
more about at the website.
Now, how many times did you learn math?
How many times did you learn history, and
science, and English?
Not once.
And yet, companies today think they can send
somebody to a service class and they're done.
Doesn't work that way.
Here's a whole other set of education, about
building a deeper service partnership.
Here's a whole other set of education, on
increasing customer loyalty.
This is the area where, if you want to build
a coach, you've got to dig down deep underneath,
and see what are the fundamental principles
of service.
That's what it is that I think needs to be
educated in the world.
In the book that you got today, the fourth
section is called Learn.
It has all those principles explained with
examples and action steps to apply.
That's the educational base.
Now let's jump to the top and look at leadership.
Who said that?
[pause] Most of you, I imagine, would own
at least one of his products.
[pause] Steve Jobs.
Right.
Passionate about "What's the customer's experience
with that product going to be.
Who said this? [pause] I'll give you a hint:
he likes to sell things.
In fact, he's created the largest retail organization
on the planet.
23 million employees.
Right?
Wal-Mart.
Sam Walton.
Who said this? [pause] Give you a hint: your
industry turned around an organization that'd
become arrogant and complacent and confident
that they knew better.
It was Lou Gerstner.
The man who went from American Express to
IBM and turned it around.
Who said this? [pause]
>>male #17: Walt Disney.
>>Kaufman: That's exactly correct.
You know because you have kids.
[laughter]
>>male #17: I don't.
[laughter]
>>Kaufman: [laughs] You are a kid.
[laughter]
Who said this?
It's Albert Einstein.
Now let's get a little closer to home.
Who said this? [laughter] Your guy.
[laughter] And who said this? [pause] Your
other guy.
So the awareness of the need to satisfy users,
it's always been there, from the very beginning.
It's in the DNA of the organization.
You understand taking action to create--
>>audience: Value.
>>Kaufman: --value for someone else.
You're fundamentally a service organization,
as is every single position inside this organization.
We could do a lot more on leadership, and
there's a section in the book on that called
Lead, but I want to spend just a moment peeking
at this area in the middle.
These 12 building blocks.
These are common practice, especially in an
organization the size of Google.
But it doesn't mean that the way they're being
done is necessarily best practice for creating
a cultural environment that constantly reinforces
and reminds people about the importance of
taking action to create more value for somebody
else.
This is where companies get confused, because
these 12 different building blocks are often
handled by different parts of the organization
who don't see the need to work closely together.
All Singapore Airlines is doing is this.
This is what all of the companies that are
differentiating based on customer experience
have figured out how to do.
These are the 12 building blocks.
Now, there's a very large section in the book
called Build, in which each one of these blocks
has a chapter.
In each chapter are global best practices
and actionable steps that leaders and service
providers can take to actually make these
things stronger.
Today, we don't have time to go through all
of them, but on the website, there are videos
about each of them.
They're free.
They're all on YouTube as well.
I want to just zoom in on two of these right
now.
One of them is the critical importance of
having what I call an engaging service vision.
Something that turns people on and makes them
want to do that.
To say it in a way that people go, "Yeah,
that's what we're about!"
The key word here is not vision.
The key word here isn't even service.
The key word is engaging, because otherwise,
it's just words on the wall.
Here's an example.
[pause] Texas.
Anybody here from Texas?
[pause] Okay.
Texas is a country.
You know that.
[laughter] Right?
We're proud Texans.
For good reason.
They had a litter problem.
The litter problem was that males between
the age of 19 and 35 were driving their pickup
truck with a shotgun in the back and throwing
the beer cans out on the highway.
The litter was accumulating.
The State Department of Transportation had
to spend more and more and more money each
year clearing it up.
So they decided to have a campaign: Give a
Hoot, Don't Pollute.
Think it worked?
>>male #18: [inaudible]
>>Kaufman: You know why?
Because in Texas, owls are considered varmints.
[laughter] Didn't work at all.
So they really went into the psychology of
what would it take to engage these [brawny
voice] proud, young, men who are Texans and
don't you tell them otherwise.
They just changed the name of the program.
Do you know what it is?
Don't--
>>female #6: Mess with Texas.
>>Kaufman: Don't Mess with Texas.
Today, you could be driving along in your
pickup and throw a beer can out the window,
but you better watch out who's behind you,
because they may be saying, "Don't you mess
with my state."
Only by making that change in the vision of
what the program was about, the litter went
down and the expense went down.
Texas highways today are looking better because
somebody figured out a better vision.
When I started working with this company,
joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, and
the Teleco hardware and software space, they
had just approved a new marketing campaign
that was called-- two words: Knowing How.
Think about that.
Knowing How.
Who is that appealing to?
[pause] The engineers and the people who work
there were proudly saying, "We know!"
But how appealing is that to the companies
that you serve?
People don't really care what you know.
There's a lot of smart people in this company.
They don't care so much what you know as what
you do with what you know for--
>>audience:Them.
>>Kaufman: --for them.
So we simply changed it to Know How, Act Now.
But now we're coming to the final exam of
this presentation.
What's the purpose of the action?
Is it just to show that you know?
Or is it to actually create an impact for
the other person?
Right.
We added two more words.
It became Know How, Act Now, Create Wow.
Which is the definition of the word unbelievable.
This is now driving 60,000 people in the organization
to know "Who is my customer?
What is their pain point?
What have we done for them in the past?
What are they currently complaining about?
What is our competition offering?
Who else in my organization is in communication
with them?
What action can I take that they will appreciate?"
Clear?
That's about as-- as it gets.
But they understood this, and they said, "Okay,
we're going to come up with a new vision.
It's called Creating Value Beyond the Numbers."
Think about what that means for a finance
department to say, "Our mission is not to
get the report right, not to just make the
payments, not to just be a normal, expected
finance department.
We've got to now reach out to our colleagues
and help create more value for them.
How to use the data.
How to interpret these charts.
How to use this to help you make better decisions."
Okay, pause for a second.
What is the engaging surface vision for the
group that you work with?
If you've got one, share it.
If you don't have one, now's the chance to
go, "You know, we should really figure that
out."
Okay?
Talk to your partner.
Go.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Okay.
Don't worry.
Don't worry.
Most organizations in the world haven't taken
this step yet.
They think it's the customer service department's
job.
Or they think it's up to the boss or the service
manager, not realizing, "Hey, it's all of
us.
It's service to all of us."
I've got one more story for you.
It's from that last building block right there
called service role modeling.
But first, a question: of all the 12 building
blocks, why would service role modeling go
last?
>>male #19: Because you have to know how you
can do other things before you can role model.
>>Kaufman: Okay, let me ask you a question.
That's good.
[pause] Let's say you're messing up in the
other areas, but your personal role model
is really strong.
The staff that you work with can see that
you're committed to responding, you'll listen
to somebody who's got a complaint, you're
going the extra mile.
Do you think other people will be a bit inspired
to help you out?
Even if the other things aren't working yet.
On the other hand, if Google nails it and
gets all of the other 11 really just right,
but the role model of the people in the organization
doesn't demonstrate that they believe it,
do you think the new people, like this woman
here, it's her second day on the job, or the
intern that's over here who's just joining
Google for the summer, do you really think
that they're going to go, "Oh yeah, we believe
it!" because you have the program in place?
It's the power, the impact of what you do
today.
It's your voice on the phone.
It's the way you end an email, whether you
put that little PS that says, "By the way,
just want to let you know how much I appreciate
that effort" or "Hey, here's my personal,
my cell phone.
Feel free to give me a call if you need my
help."
It's that personal role model that can make
a big impact.
Every one of us can do it.
So one last story, because it reminds me so
much differently from New York, which is where
we are right now.
An American consultant went to Sweden to work
in a large factory on an implementation project.
He was from California, so he was accustomed
to warm weather.
He gets to Sweden, he's in his hotel, he looks
outside, and it looks like this.
His Swedish host comes and picks him up in
the car.
A nice Volvo.
The Volvo's nice and warm.
Picks him up at the hotel.
They drive to the factory.
They are there early.
The factory is not opening for another half
an hour.
They happen to get there really early.
No traffic that day.
The guy drives his Volvo to the farthest edge
of the parking lot away from the factory building,
steps out of the car, buttons up his big,
heavy Swedish coat.
The American from California steps out and
starts shivering.
They walk all the way across this frozen parking
lot to get into the factory.
They get there, and the guy from California's
practically frozen stiff, and turns and looks
at his host and says, "W-w-w-w-what did you
do that for?"
The Swedish guy looks at him, feels fine,
says, "Do what?"
He says, "We came early.
Why did you park all the way over there?"
And the Swede said, "Isn't it obvious?"
The Californian said, "What do you mean, obvious?
I'm freezing!"
He goes, "Oh.
Well, see, as my colleagues come-- We came
early.
So we had plenty of time.
But as my colleagues come closer and closer
to the opening of the factory when we need
everybody to be on time, they're going to
have less and less time.
So doesn't it make sense for me to park on
the--"
>>female #7: Farthest end.
>>Kaufman: Right.
Now, that's taking action to create value
for someone--
>>male #20: Else.
>>Kaufman: --else.
Doesn't it sound exactly like New York City?
[laughter] Making the shift from a confused
culture where there's lots of different messages
going on, to aligning yourself, in your case
on user experience or creating value for your
advertisers or helping your colleague to be
more successful or having this intern's career
step forward or making this new person at
Google feel welcome.
That's taking action to create value for somebody
else.
It is possible to engineer the development
of a culture that does that.
I started at the beginning a little more cerebral
than when I work with most of my clients.
What are the fundamental linguistic distinctions?
Well, you better have those principles worked
out.
What are the standard practices?
You better have a way that people can actually
implement.
What are the strategies of the companies that
do it well?
That's what you'll find in the book Uplifting
Service, and you all got a copy of it today.
There's a fundamental methodology, a way that
we work top down with organizations and bottom
up to make the results actually stick, with
implementing this over time.
That's section 5 in the book, called Drive.
All of this you'll find at the website.
If you just add the words "slides" at the
end of the URL, so that it becomes upyourservice.com/slides,
a summary set of slides of this entire presentation
are available for download for free.
At YouTube, I'm armed and dangerous, walking
around New York City with my little flipcam
and an external microphone.
I'm shooting all the time and using your wonderful
YouTube service.
Thank you very much, Google.
And of course, the book is called Uplifting
Service.
You can find out more about that at upliftingservice.com.
Before I close, I'd like to demonstrate one
more thing to you that you'll get a personal
experience.
Once again, please.
Say thank you to your partner.
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Okay, good.
Now, what level-- [laughter] Good, good.
What level did you just say thank you on the
six levels of service.
Criminal, basic, expected, desired, surprising,
unbelievable.
Talk to your partner.
What level?
[audience murmurs] [laughter]
>>Kaufman: All right, come on back.
Come on back.
You've got it calibrated it now, right?
You've got to calibrate it.
In your mind, once you get ready, I'm going
to ask you to step up one level higher, or,
if you're really enthusiastic, step up two,
and get ready to thank your partner that way,
but at a higher level.
You ready?
Ready, ready, ready, and, and, and, go.
Say thank you.
[audience loudly murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Three questions to wrap up.
Question number 1: could you feel a difference,
yes or no?
>>audience: Yes.
>>Kaufman: Good.
Question number 2: did it feel better or worse?
>>audience: Better.
>>Kaufman: Better.
Now here's the critical question: did it feel
better when they thanked you at a higher level,
or did you already start feeling better when
you were getting ready to thank them?
Which one was it?
Where did the good feeling come?
Was it already when you were getting ready,
or did it happen only when they thanked you?
>audience: Getting ready.
>>Kaufman: Right.
When you were getting ready.
So this is the amazing not only pay it forward,
but pay it straight back to yourself of committing
yourself to do something more for someone
else.
The moment you make the decision to do something
to help somebody else more, the first person
who gets the benefit of that is you.
The energy comes up in you, and what goes
around, comes around.
What goes around, comes around.
Rub your hands together, please.
[rubbing noise] Clap twice.
[clapping] Hands up.
Turn to your partner.
[clapping] No, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, why--
Hold on a second, why'd you give him a high
five?
[laughter] Why'd you do that?
Because we've already done it a couple times
before, so it's become what?
>>audience: Expected.
>>Kaufman: [nasally voice] Expected.
But we're committed to stepping--
>>audience: Up.
>>Kaufman: --up.
So rub your hands together.
[rubbing noise] Clap three times.
[clapping] Hands up.
Turn to your partner.
Give him a hiiiiiiiiiii you want to give him
a high five?
[clapping] And then, hands up, hands up, hands
up.
Give him a hug!
[audience murmurs]
>>Kaufman: Okay, I know we're not in California.
[laughter] Thank you very much, Googlers,
for the privilege and the pleasure of being
with you today here at Google.
Thank you.
