On this edition of the Atlanta Small Business Show, we’re pleased to welcome Matt Watkinson, customer experience strategist, keynote speaker, and Co-Founder and CEO of Methodical. Watkinson is also the author of The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences, The Grid, and Mastering Uncertainty, set to debut this Summer.
Transcription:
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Welcome, Matt to the show. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your schedule to join us.
Matt Watkinson:
Oh, my pleasure.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure. So from your perspective, and we’ll jump right in here, what is the key to outstanding customer service?
Matt Watkinson:
Oh wow, what a question to start with.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Watkinson:
What is the key to outstanding customer service? Well, I think ultimately the key is to understand your customer’s needs. Because if you don’t know those, then it’s going to be very hard to provide them with outstanding service. So that’s the first thing. I think the second thing, which is perhaps equally as obvious in retrospect but often overlooked, is managing people’s expectations. When you think about how satisfied you are with anything, from a hotel that you stay at to a car that you buy to a movie you watch or anything like that, ultimately it’s a function of your expectations.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
Now as obvious as that sounds, how much time and effort that people put into kind of proactively managing and setting customer’s expectations? It’s often something that falls through the cracks because it’s no one person’s job in particular. So yeah, really understand your customer’s needs, manage their expectations. Sorry. And the rest of it is really another principle that we tend to operate under is to think of yourself as a host and think of your customer as a guest, and then just do what would come naturally.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
If you were hosting anybody kind of in your personal life, attend to their personal needs, be responsive to them, treat them as an individual, do what you can to make them feel valued, those kinds of things. So our philosophy really is not to overcomplicate things or make things unnecessarily kind of clever. If you can do those things, you’ll be 99% ahead of the rest of the pack. Ahead of, sorry, 99% of the rest of the pack.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure, sure. So the country, and for that matter the entire world, has gone through some crazy times here in the last couple of years.
Matt Watkinson:
They have?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
And customer service, I think, in some cases has really taken a big hit. Right? Because people are so confused. They’re just happy to get the product in some cases, regardless of what they had to go through to get it. Talk to us about some of the trends that you’re seeing out there in this market that we’re in currently. What’s working with customers? What’s not?
Matt Watkinson:
Well, I mean, ultimately it comes back to some of those themes that I was just mentioning. I mean if you think about how COVID or the pandemic has affected businesses … for some, it has raised adoption barriers. If you’re in a physical premises and people can’t come and visit it, that’s a challenge. For some, it’s created massive spikes in demand. And if you don’t have enough stock, then you can’t supply it. For some, it’s extended lead times. The impact on businesses has been very much on a kind of case by case basis in my opinion and what we’ve observed. So the first thing is that there aren’t really any hard and fast rules about how businesses should have responded to it. It’s entirely contingent on their situation.
Matt Watkinson:
Then the second thing is a lot of it comes back to keeping that communication open, providing people with feedback. And again, setting expectations about what is happening, why it’s happening, and how it has to happen so that people feel well informed and well understood. And also, I think we’ve seen a lot of really quite amazing innovation coming out as a consequence of this. Because COVID has undoubtedly been an existential crisis for a lot of small businesses. If you think about being a restaurant or if you think about even being something like a yoga studio or something like that.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
People can’t come and visit your premises so they’ve had no choice but to change direction, pivot to doing their courses online or delivering their food through things like … I don’t know, UberEats or DoorDash or those kinds of things.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
And I think as much as COVID has obviously been a really terrible thing and everybody has suffered in their own way, we have kind of seen some incredible human ingenuity coming out as a consequence of it, and we’ve also shown that we are adaptable. People can adapt, they just kind of have to be forced into doing it and we’ve all had to do that, and a lot of small businesses have done that very successfully. And hats off to them, it’s been a difficult time.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure. And many of these small businesses that you just mentioned, whether it’s a yoga studio or a restaurant and there’s so many others out there, that had to pivot and change their business processes and such to accommodate customers, the key now is to see what was working and keep those as best practices. At the same time, as you’re opening up your restaurant to diners that are coming in now, to also maintain that to-go business that maybe you never had before. We’re just using a restaurant as a sample, there’s so many different applications to this. Right? But rather than saying, “Okay. We’re coming to the end of this pandemic. Let’s do away with the to-go business and focus back in the dining room business.” Right? I mean, they can really pick up more business by maintaining both.
Matt Watkinson:
Yeah. I mean, that’s certainly true. For some businesses I’m sure that will be true. Some businesses will probably come out of this and think, “Wow, we’ve got a new sales channel here that’s really working for us. That’s complimentary to what we were doing before.”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
So yeah, that’s true. But I think the bigger lesson here, and I’m glad you mentioned the third book about mastering uncertainty, is that unexpected events always occur. Right? I mean, the pandemic obviously being a very big one and a very impactful one.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
But we are always, over the course of our entrepreneurial journey or the course of developing our business, any small business owner, any leader of any size of company knows that they spend the majority of their time and energy dealing with unexpected things that just kind of crop up that weren’t on the plan, that weren’t part of the program and have to be dealt with in order for the business to continue to function or to flourish. So what I hope is a lesson that people will take away from the pandemic will be a bit broader, or perhaps more philosophical than, “What should we keep post-pandemic versus our pre-pandemic business model?” And just be more aware that unexpected things are bound to happen and, “Are we prepared for the possibility of them happening?”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
Are we open to unexpected opportunity? Not just adversity, but opportunities that might come our way. A lot of people are so narrowly focused on their plan that they’re not just unprepared for adverse events coming from left field, but they’re actually screening out opportunities that might be coming their way because they’re too narrowly focused. So I hope that as a consequence of this pandemic, people will be more willing to embrace uncertainty, more willing to experiment, more willing to try, more willing to do all that kind of stuff that they’ve had to do to survive through the pandemic. And almost adopt that as an ethos going forward, regardless of what happens with COVID.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right. Right. And as one business owner said to us, with complete respect of those that lost their lives and got very ill during COVID, we may look back at COVID and say, “This might have been one of the best things that happened to many small businesses in a very long period of time.” In the sense that we learned so much, to your point, about ourselves as operators and as leaders and as business owners, and then also to your point about opening up other channels of revenue that we would have never thought of before. So these are interesting times, for sure. Would you agree with that? That in many cases, this might have been just that kick in the pants some business owners needed to say, “Hey. Look at this opportunity before you,” through all of this?
Matt Watkinson:
I think it would be hard for me to feel as if I could speak in generalities on that topic because I think it’s very personal. For me what I’ve observed in my social network among my clients, among my colleagues, friends, family, is that the pandemic has provided a kind of fresh perspective on things. And for some people that’s meant, “Wow. Why did I have a commute that was horrible?” For some people that’s meant, “I really don’t like my job and there is more to life. I’m doing this.”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
For some people it’s meant, “Wow. This is a crazy opportunity for my particular business.”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
For some people it’s like, “Oh, this is an existential crisis. But actually I’m making more money teaching yoga online than I was in the-”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
There you go.
Matt Watkinson:
“-in the studio because now I’ve got a scalable channel.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Watkinson:
Yeah. So I think everybody has been affected by it in their own way. And I mean, it would be way above my pay grade to be spokesman for the world of what’s happening there.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
But what is not above your pay grade is Mastering Uncertainty, your new book that’s coming out soon. Talk to us about the motivation behind writing it, and then also what you want the takeaways to be with the people that read it.
Matt Watkinson:
Sure. Well the motivation for writing it was really an extension of my own learning, or reflection rather, of my own learning and insights and my own development in my career. My first book, The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences, obviously is all about principles and how you can apply them.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
Right? And so that’s one way of making decisions. My second book, The Grid, was all about trying to think more holistically and thinking in systems, and that’s another way of making decisions. But there’s a third element to decision making in business, which is that ultimately we have to think probabilistically. However clever we are, however much analysis we do, however much data we gather, business is a probabilistic environment where pretty much anything can happen. Right? And most of what goes on in the world is out of our control. We don’t control regulation. We don’t control what new technologies come along. We don’t control if someone sets up shop next door to us.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Watkinson:
Even if we launch a new product that we’re really excited about, we don’t really know whether people are going to love it or not until we’ve made it.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Watkinson:
So the only smart way really to approach business decision making, and this is something that every entrepreneur learns firsthand when they give it a go, is to try it and see. It’s to play a numbers game. It’s to be willing to experiment. It’s to think ultimately in a more probabilistic manner. And yet, if you look at how business is taught at business school, it’s all very heavy on theory. It’s all very heavy on analysis. It’s all enshrouded in this kind of layer of academic cleverness that doesn’t really translate that well into the real world.
Matt Watkinson:
So I, along with my writing partner, co-author, the investor and entrepreneur Csaba Konkoly wanted to write a book on exactly that, which would be empowering for people because they could realize, “Oh my gosh. Maybe I just need to try it and see.” Not in a kind of haphazard fashion, but to try and surface this probabilistic dimension to business decision making that extends to everything from trying new ideas, to how we manage relationships, to how we approach sales, all of those things. If you think about how you met your partner or your best friend or any of these huge events that happen in your life you’ll realize, “Gosh. How many random things had to come together for that particular outcome?” And business is a lot like that.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah.
Matt Watkinson:
But people don’t often think that way. And as a consequence, they tend to beat themselves up a bit if things don’t work out because we have this hindsight bias. Right? They’re like, “How did I not see that coming?”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
Well, it’s easy to see afterwards, but it’s not easy to see before. So there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes, you just have to keep going.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yep.
Matt Watkinson:
You have to iterate. You have to basically play a numbers game. So we wanted to provide a really structured and pragmatic, accessible, and straightforward approach to help people make decisions in that way. And yeah, that’s why we’re so excited to bring this book out later in the year.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure, and I’m sure that it’s going to be another best seller for you. And talk to us about some of the things that you’ve noticed, maybe some of the best practices that business owners can put into play right now during these times. As it relates to providing good customer service, taking good care of customers, what do they want today? What do customers want and what can business owners do to deliver that?
Matt Watkinson:
Well, it’s really going to depend on the nature of the business and who you’re competing with. Right? So you could almost argue that … if you’re a retailer, for example, you’re either in the convenience business, in which case you are up against the might of the kind of Amazons of the world who are probably better resourced than you. Or you’re in the experience business, in which case you’re focusing on something beyond the purely transactional.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
You’re creating some kind of social pleasure for your customer or something sensory, something interactive, something immersive, something that’s a joy to look forward to.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
So even if you just think about, are we in the convenience business or are we in the experience business? That’s something that a lot of people think about. The other thing to bear in mind, which I think is hugely important and often overlooked, is that the most successful businesses on earth tend to be simply better rather than deliberately different. They tend to take the things that benefit the most customers, the largest volume of possible customers the most.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
Right?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
And do those better. So if you think about … Amazon would be a good example, who I was referring to earlier. Every customer benefits from an easy checkout. Every customer benefits from prompt, reliable delivery.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
Every customer benefits from making it easy to return things. Right? So that’s what they do.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah.
Matt Watkinson:
They don’t do anything clever. They don’t do anything deliberately different or have a USP or anything, they just focus on what creates the most value for the most customers.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
Right?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Watkinson:
So I would encourage every small business owner who, if they’re looking to outperform their rivals, stop thinking about USPs. Stop thinking about, “How are we going to differentiate ourselves? How are we going to be different?” Nobody cares. Think about what matters most to your customer in terms of what will create them the most value.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Watkinson:
What matters most to the largest number of those customers and then say, “How can we be simply better at that than the alternatives?” And people will say, “Oh. Well, isn’t that just table stakes? Isn’t that just the basics?” Arguably, yes. But the quality in those basic things varies so much amongst the competition, as I’m sure you’ve experienced first hand.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah, of course.
Matt Watkinson:
As everybody does.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yep.
Matt Watkinson:
But just focusing on the basics and outperforming on that is enough to have a really successful and thriving business. So that would be my kind of pearl of wisdom, if it’s not too pompous to use that terminology.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
It is not, it is not. Matt Watkinson, Author, Keynote Speaker, Co-Founder and CEO of Methodical. And also I might add the book is Mastering Uncertainty. That is coming out, look for that wherever you buy your books. And so I want to thank you, Matt, so much for joining us on the show. We very much appreciate it. Love to have you back after the book is launched to take some excerpts out of the book and discuss those.
Matt Watkinson:
It’d be my pleasure. Thank you so much.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Thank you.
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