Femi Adebanji — Customer Experience vs Customer Serice

What's involved as we do each and every Monday night at this time? My special guest and I say special guest because we got to know each other a good couple of years ago. Long time ago. And it was basically because I was with mix at another place that we were at and you had a wedding dress shop there, believe it or not. And we just got chatting and we kind of became mates and we sort of bump into each other all around mid-range because you're a mid-range boy. Are you not? That's a hundred percent. Okay. I suppose I better introduce you as well. Then people know who I'm talking to. It's Femi Adebanji and we're chatting to him tonight and we're going to get on to eventually talking about customer experience versus customer service. We had Lynne Baker and you know, Lynne, she was talking something similar. She'd been to the Disney thing before, but I think in our country at the moment, it is so, so important. The whole concept of what your customer experience is, what your customer service levels are like because we kind of as South Africans generally are horrible when it comes to customer service. I have to admit there. I got to tell you this for a decade. I stay in Madrid and I stay in a complex, a lovely complex.

I love it. They do strange things that people in complexes do sometimes like now they've decided they need to redo all the paving in the complex. So there's almost a hundred units in the complex. So you must now close off one half of the road to redo the paving there and make people go up and down the one side. It's insane, but they came to us a while ago and they were like, yes, we're going to do it. We're going to get fiber. Okay. So the guys installed all the fiber. We had the whole complex dug up. I had people digging up my, I had pictures of what's in the box. Okay. So I'll ask you, I'll tell you who they are. I'm not scared. Danger tape across my front gate because they just take up, I'm like, okay, so what I'm home on a Friday afternoon. I'm not supposed to go out anyway. After all of that, they then announced that, that we're going to do this fiber thing. So I said, fantastic. Can you please send me my invoice? Cause they had the special sort of offer thing that you have to, of course, yes. So they send me a quote. I said, that's great. You've told me how much it costs. Now I would like to pay. Can you please send me an invoice? Nothing. Then the next thing out of the blue, this was two months ago, next thing out of the blue, I get a phone call.

Hi, we'd like to come and install your router. And I'm like, fantastic. Can I pay you? Well, well, yes, yes, we'll send you the invoice. And then, but, but we, can you, yes, I can be there. The man comes, installs the router. Fantastic. Rooters working. Can I please pay you? They then send, and they say to me, you need to activate your service. I said, fantastic. Can I pay you? Can I activate my service? Yes, yes. Okay. But can I pay you? To this? No way. Until today. No way. I was asking these people, please activate my fiber and can I please pay you? And nothing. And not a thing. Seriously. Not a thing. The lady I spoke to today said that they were going to escalate it to the customer relation manager and he would get back to me within 15 minutes. This was it, roughly quarter to four this afternoon. It's now almost four. After six. Still haven't got that phone call, eh? They're making too much money, right? Well, obviously these fiber guys are like styling. I mean, it took me less time and effort to get fiber installed at my office. And I thought that was a mission than it has to get fiber to my house. Wow. Yeah. That's unbelievable. I love that customer service and I'm glad I got that off of my chest because I feel a lot better.

Free therapy. Yes, exactly. But really, I mean, and also we're not allowed to, according to these guys that have now put this up, we're not allowed for a pair of three months to go to another service provider. So it's a really, of those three months, two months have already elapsed. Okay. And I'm busy going, okay, so now if you get this right, does my three months start again or do I only have to pay you for a month and then tell you to go away? The day they install it, I think that's when the three months you start because it makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I can't. So anyway, I thought I'd bring you in. We talk customer service, customer experience, but first let's talk a little bit about Femi. I mean, tell me your story. Where are you from? Because as I stated just now, you weren't always in this line of business that you are now. So take me back. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me on the show. It's great to be here. It wasn't expecting me to have my little bit of nonsense. It's throwing me off course, but anyway, yeah, I used to, well, currently I'm a customer service speaker, trainer, consultant. I help organizations design and implement customer service and experience strategies to turn service into a competitive advantage.

But in my previous life, I used to be an investment consultant and I decided one day that I wanted to have my own business, do my own thing, but let's, let's just go back a little further because you're not going back far enough. I'm going back far enough. Don't talk about wedding dresses. Whenever I start my story, it's normally I started life at a very young age. So that far, that far, where did you, where were you born? Okay. You see now I'm worried now, now I'm really, now I'm concerned, I'm concerned, Dave. Okay. Okay. All right. Let me just lay it out out there. Okay. So Dave, I promise you that he's grabbing his cell phone. He's grabbing his cell phone. Your cell phone is safe, Dave, don't have to worry. I only speak and train for a living. I was born in Nigeria. We came to South Africa, my father, my mother, my family in 1992. Okay. My old man was working for Unilever and I did high school at Dublin High School with Natal University. So being in South Africa for a while. And you came here before it was the land of Wilkin High School. Yeah, before. And yeah, before, way before. Well, a couple of years before. And yeah, it was quite an interesting experience to have left Nigeria where I grew up and come here and it was a culture shock, but now it's home.

We always think it's weird when people say, oh, you're coming to South Africa is a culture shock if you're coming from another country. But I mean, it is and I can understand, and I mean, you've obviously also gone through your own trials and tribulations when people go, oh, Nigeria, I mean, that's why we did this thing. We made a joke about it. But it is. I mean, there's a few bad apples they've given, you know, suddenly you all get sort of tarred and feathered painted with the same brush kind of thing. Sure. Sure. And I mean, a lot of people from outside of South Africa as well see the South Africans as the same kind of thing. So you studied, you've got a degree, you were a financial consultant. Investment consultant. Investment consultant. So we worked with pension funds to help them manage the pension funds. So we put together strategies for retirement funds. So I was the guy who invested your money if you had a retirement fund, which you would get when you were 65. And I did that for some time and decided, look, that's enough, enough is enough. You know, we Nigerians don't do 9 to 5 very well. We don't do 9 to 5 very well, and how did this journey of yours, because I know you and I got to know you as an entrepreneur and you're still very much like that.

I mean, but how did you get on to sort of customer service? Because you, one of the guys that, you know, if you talk to people in the corporate world, a lot of people know who you are and it's all like, oh yeah, family, overnight success. Your overnight success has taken many years. We've known each other, what, almost 10 years now? That's not that long. It's about six, seven, I think. Okay. So it's about seven years. Seven years. It was longer. So yeah. So it's been. I know. It's been. Knowing me is a problem. But yes. But I mean, yeah, and you were, you were sort of on the periphery of the, of the speaking and training sort of side of things. I mean, I know that was a passion for, of yours. Yes, yes. We won't get into the wedding dresses, as I said. So what made you get into this concept or what made you think customer service, customer experience, what made you think this is the place that you need to be? You know, I have to bring in the wedding dresses story then, if you want me to be honest with you. I'd like that. I'm a fan. You know, when I left corporate, I decided to start a business. My wife came up with this idea of having, of having a wedding dress business and I've never been in it.

She'd never done it before. And we started and I think very quickly you realize that the key factor between being successful and being unsuccessful in that kind of industry is really the experience that clients get the minute they walk in to that store till three, four months later when they buy the wedding dress. And we started that, that business in Midrand. In fact, we started our business in Sunning Hill first of all in the second bedroom of our townhouse. We use the second spare bedroom and after about three, four years, we had branches in Midrand, Long Hill, Pretoria, Pernoni and all organic growths. And the only difference, the reason why we could do that was because we understood when the client walks in, the mother, the sister, the friends, it's how you make them feel from the very minute they walk into that store to the three, four months in between, you know, getting them appraised on what's happening with their dresses and when they come back in. It's the experience from the way the store is, where the stuff are, every single thing. That is what, that is what drove the success of that business. And that's why I realized this is a huge opportunity for businesses to, doesn't matter what industry you're in.

The key factor ultimately is how you make your customers feel. It's not what you sell. It's not what you do. It's how you do what you do. And that's how I went from having the business to speaking about customer service, training about customer service, using real life examples of how that can actually impact the bottom line of the business and grow the business. Okay, so my statement, and we'll come back and talk about this, my statement earlier about the fact that generally service levels in this country are shocking. Has that been your experience as well? It has. Absolutely. Definitely. And I think the reason is because businesses haven't figured out how do we take a great product or great service? How do we combine that with a great experience and make that into competitive advantage? For many businesses, services, I buy your product, you know, give it back to me. That's it. So I sat back and said, look, how do we actually take this and make this an exceptional experience for our customers that makes us stand out as a brand of distinction in the hearts and minds of that customer? And when the customer would recommend you to other people and come back. Exactly. Okay, well, let's talk.

We're going to talk a little bit about that. My guest in studio with me tonight on what's involved, Femi Adebanji. And we're talking customer experience, customer service. We'll be back chatting a little bit more with him in just a bit, David Watts on MIX 93.8. MIX 93.8, some legendary radio for you on a Monday night. My guest in studio, Femi Adebanji. So you've now actually got a business that you run, which is called the Service Excellence Institute. That's correct. Yes. Okay. So we're talking about this and you were saying, and we agreed before we went to the break, that customer service as a whole in this country is quite shocking, related just a story from today. And that happened to me. You said in your business that you had before how important it was. Now is there a difference then between customer experience and customer service? But because I think they are different, but they are very closely linked or they're not. So give me an example of what customer experience is all about. So I think let's start with service first. Customer service is a lot more reactive. So oftentimes you'd find, for instance, like in your situation, these guys obviously don't want your money. They don't want your money.

And then you phone the customer service department to say, listen guys, I want to pay you. Then they didn't try and escalate the issue so that they can actually ultimately get you to pay them. So customer service is a lot more reactive. So you find oftentimes it's the customer engaging with the organization about a specific issue. Customer experience, on the other hand, is a lot more proactive. It's saying, listen, how do we first of all build our business around the customer and not the other way around? It's saying every single thing that we do, how we think about our product, our service, how we think about our strategy is built around the customer, beginning all the way to the end. So that's a distinctive difference. Customer service is very, very proactive, and it's a very reactive, a bigger pardon, where our customer experience is very, very far more proactive. So I'll give you an example. I'll tell you a story. I had a few years ago I was in a collection flight to Durban, and I was at Oratambo Airport. And I see this guy in the room, he's a janitor, and he sees me walking in and he says, good day, sir. Welcome to my office. Have a nice day. Exactly. See that? You look at your face.

I had the same look in my face. And I was like, I couldn't believe my eyes. So I went and did my thing and I came out and he says, well, no, welcome back, sir. Did you ever enjoy your stage? Did you have a good time thinking, this can't be happening, you know? So as I traveled off and I see this guy doing the same thing to every single gent that came in and went out, and I watched this guy very carefully. He was getting tipped 10 rand, 20 rand, and I did the math. If this guy's getting tipped 10 rand a day from 10 people by being proactive in terms of building his business around the customer. He's getting about 100 bucks a day. So in a month he's getting what, within 1,000 rand, 1,000, 5, 2,000 rand a day. He clings toilets for a living. So what I'm saying is that effect is that, you see, he's being a lot more services doing what he does, cleaning the toilets. But I mean, that's his job. That's his job. And you expect, you know, if somebody's in the janitorial services, you do not expect them to be happy about what they do. Exactly. And the thing is, he creates a whole different experience for his customers. By saying, "Good day, sir. Welcome to my office. Have a nice day. Come through." It's something you don't expect.

So he exceeds the expectations, you know? So he goes beyond the norm to create a very, very different experience for his customers, for his clients. Okay. And yeah. So this kind of thing, this makes sense to me. But you know, in terms of your business, you offer these interventions to corporates, obviously targeted it at the sort of medium to larger corporates. Well, that's correct. Yes, that's correct. Okay. And I mean, we've discussed this with some of my guests before. It's the reason I have people like yourselves on the show, because not everybody has access to what you're doing in terms of the smaller business or the solar entrepreneur, those kind of things. Now, you said something very interesting about designing your business, which to me, when I think about what you were saying now, I was like, "Oh, okay, maybe I didn't do that when I first started out." But we're thinking, you know, build your business around your customer. Yes. Because very much, you know, and my introduction to the business world, in fact, this incarnation of my business as well was, "Okay, there's a need out there. I want to see if I can fill the need, do some research. Okay, that's cool." I never painted a picture of what my ideal customer was, you know, and yes, I pushed myself and my team to try and be as proactive as we possibly can, but I've got to be honest, my business was not built around the customer first and foremost, it was built around, "Okay, this is a service, build it and it's hope to hell they will come." Hope to hell they will come, okay?

And that was a learning curve in this business, I mean, at the moment as well. Because, you know, you build it and nobody gives a damn. So it is a problem and I think one of the things is, because I noticed that the other day is whenever I get an inquiry, whether it be telephonically or via email, I try and get onto that as soon as possible, say thank you for contacting us and then get hold of whoever's contact at us and actually have a chat and say, "Hey, listen, this is what we do. Thank you for doing this. And then we get together and let's see where else we can assist you with your business." Absolutely. So, but I mean, I think perhaps if we built the entire concept of the business around our ideal customer, because now I kind of think I must have had somebody in mind because we targeted at the sort of the small medium kind of enterprise, we targeted at that level, I saw there was a need, but I never put a face and a whatever to the customer. Is it that important as you say, I mean, can people revolutionize businesses if they take a step back and go, "Hang on now, what would my customer want?" Absolutely. I mean, definitely you would, because, and also bear in mind, David, that 80% of your business is going to come from 20% of your customers.

It's the 80/20 principle applies even in business as well. So even as you engage with your customers over time, it's really looking at that 20% and saying, "Listen, what is it that they're actually looking for?" Working with them, having that kind of relationship with them, ongoing relationship with your customers to try and establish it for time, because understand also that as time changes, they need to change, the expectations will change. So as those needs and expectations are changing, it's also for you to understand how those things are changing to find ways for your business to remain relevant to what the needs and expectations are. And focusing on that 20% of your customers and saying, "How do we impress these guys?" Blow their socks off with our service such that we become that brand of distinction in their heart and their minds. So you have to keep engaging with them over time to understand how their needs are changing and begin to tweak your business and your services to make yourself relevant to those customers changing needs. I think what you've said there is incredibly important, is that relevance to be relevant. And it's one of the difficult things. We were chatting before we went on air and I said that I spent most of my day researching and finding out what's happening, trends, et cetera, et cetera, because that part of the business that we do, which my business company, What's Involved does, is the social media stuff, the website development, et cetera, et cetera.

And if you're not on top of this, it gets away with you so fast and I have developers and programmers working with us, graphic designers, et cetera, et cetera. But those guys only do what they sort of get shown to do or, you know, if I identify a trend and I say, okay, this is where we need to be going, 2018 is the year of video. So we're doing a lot of video creation, a lot of corporate videos, social media stuff, whiteboard videos. But that's not to say that 2019 is going to be the same thing because something's going to change. Of course. And, you know, everybody talks about social media, the importance of it and the importance of getting in touch with your clients and prospective clients. But it's also, it's a kind of a scary animal because it can get away from you. One wrong post at the wrong time, one wrong comment, you know, and it's not the kind of thing. I mean, because that's where people find out a lot about you these days is if somebody wants to know about FEMI, they would go onto the social media, they'd have a look, they'd find out if you've got a website. So before they even talk to you. At least gone to the platform to go check. Yeah. So how important is that kind of stuff for you as well in terms of when you talk about customer service and customer experience?

How important is the fact that we now in the social media environment? It is absolutely, absolutely important. We have to understand that the power is now shifted from the businesses to the customer. Customers now have very quick access to information via the cell phone and social media so they can get information about not just what you're selling or who you are, your service, they can get information about what people are saying about the experience with your brand, your people and your company. And based on their feedback, they are forming perceptions about your brand and they're deciding am I going to do business with this person or not? The scary thing is you won't even know. So customers can now shift perception via social media and that's actually influencing customer buying perceptions as a result. So unless of course you start ensuring that you invest a lot in service experience and doing the right things in the right way, in today's world it can actually backfire against you significantly. On the other hand, it can actually work in your favor. I'll give you an example, a guy called Peter Shankman, I don't know if you heard the story. He sends out a tweet, he's catching a flight in Newark in the US.

So he sends out a random tweet, he says, "Hey @Mortons, Mortons is a steakhouse in the US." He says, "Hey @Mortons, can you drop me a porterhouse steak in two hours when I land?" Okay, thanks, so he's catching to our flight from Newark to, I don't know where, but he's catching to our flight. So he sends out this random tweet, "Can you meet me at Newark airport with a porterhouse steak?" He lands two hours later, gets out of the plane and guess what happens? There is a guy in a tuxedo in a bow tie with a steak waiting for Peter Shankman at the airport. Wow. Now, what happens is he posts his stuff on social media with a picture and everything. Can you imagine the mileage that Mortons got from that? Yeah, that would be unbelievable, because that's the kind of thing that would go viral. Exactly. So it's about saying, how do we now leverage, how do we first of all not only give great experiences for our customers, but how do we now leverage that in a way that makes us position as a brand of distinction via social media? I want to talk about your experiences and some tips that you may have for people that are listening. Maybe they solo preneurs, as I believe they now are called. All businesses, medium, even some of the bigger things.

I mean, some of the tips and some of the things that you would say. So basically what I'm asking is I'm asking for some of your keynote address that you give for free to share with our listeners. That's what I'm asking for. I'll send you an invoice. Let's be honest. I'm trying to give our listeners more bang for your buck, but you know, it's all about customer service. I've got to give them the best I can. So when we come back, we'll chat a little bit about that. My special guest in Steer with me, Femi Adebanji. We're going to give out contact details at the end of the show, but at the moment we're talking customer experience, customer service. I forgot to mention you are a published author as well, which adds a lot of credibility. I mean, I thought that if I did an adult coloring in book, I could also say I was a published author, but apparently not. So I'm still working on my life story, but we just said before the break, I want to pick your brains because obviously you do these keynote addresses. You deal with the big corporates and stuff like that. Our listeners, some of them may be in a position where they could hire you for their company for the day, for an intervention, whatever the case may be, but there are people who maybe are like me that run a small business, people with medium businesses.

We hear customer service, customer experience. Talk to me a little bit about it because to my mind, it's more than you walking into a retail establishment and somebody going, hello, can I help you? And you go, no, thanks, I'm just looking and they go, okay. And all they're worried about is once you pick up whatever it is you're buying, that they can put their code onto the box, on the side of the box so they can get their commission. And the sort of service levels extend to hello, can I help you? Now we thought originally a lot of people thought I still do think to a degree when you think customer service, you think somebody in the service industry like a restaurant. But it's not. No. So give me some, talk to me. Talk to me about, I am a company. My company is called XYZ. I want to be able to gather and keep customers and I want to turn them into raving, loyal fans. Where do I start? I think you start first of all with the company, with the staff, because you have to create the culture first within your organization, no matter how small your business is, you've got to create a culture where your employees see their coworkers, not just as colleagues, but as customers first, in a sense that they have to see their colleagues as people who depend on them so that they can do their jobs better, so they have to deliver.

That way you start to build a culture of internal service excellence within that business. And that ultimately transcends the outside, the ultimate customer on the outside. Because you can't give what you don't have. If you don't have a culture of service within your business, if your staff don't understand that, that customer pays the bills. If they don't understand that, that customer is the lifeblood of your business. If they don't really appreciate the fact that, listen, without that customer you wouldn't exist, you can't fake it. It's an interesting concept. You can't fake it. You can't fake what you don't have. But how do you get people, because I think this is what I want to, and maybe there is no answer, but I am looking for the answer for this, is you say it's instilling a culture of customer service within your business, and coworkers seeing each other as customers as well. Now, if I look at it in my business, I deal with strategy mainly, I have somebody who deals with production side, the video creation side, I have the web developer, graphic designer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, they certainly amongst themselves don't see the other people as their clients. But they need to.

They have to. Okay, but how do you get, because, I mean, I can stand there and shout and scream and carry a big stick. It's not going to motivate them, and I'm thinking in businesses that I've been in in the past, businesses that I've had to deal with, people are like, "Dude, I show up. I'm at work at 9 o'clock in the morning. I'll stay here until 5 o'clock. What else do you want from me?" You know, the thing is, David, businesses that don't start thinking like that ultimately will get disrupted. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. You have to start creating that culture where you see your coworkers as customers first and foremost, if you want to be competitive and consider for value. So you almost have to, to create that culture, you have to say, "Okay, what does the ideal service experience look like to us, and how do we then actually encourage this within the team? How do we find innovative ways to encourage our people to keep doing the same thing?" So if they do it, how do we celebrate those actions? How do we make those actions public? So as you've been in charge of strategy, you're saying, "What does an ideal customer service experience look like? If we had to give our customer 110%, what would that look like, smell like, sound like, and be like?

What would make our customers come back again? And then how do we then celebrate the guys in the team that actually do that and do that consistently?" That way, you start shifting behavior, and then the guys in the team realize that we're serious about service, we've built a business around the customer, and gradually over time, you start to shift that culture and build that culture. Because unless you do that, you kind of fake it to the customer. They can tell. They're savvy. You know, it's an incredibly interesting concept though, because, you know, I try with my team and I consider myself fairly well-informed. Yes. Yes. There is the odd occasion where I will... The odd occasion where I will get a bit grumpy and there will be harsh words, you know, and some of the words, you know, one of the two words is off, but it's far easier, and I discovered like today even, that, you know, if people are not that invested in the business, if you are a business owner or a manager or a GM or whatever the case may be, if you don't have those kind of people who are as focused on the business in the business, if you take your eye off the ball for a second, and, you know, I never thought I would be in a position, but as we're talking now, I'm thinking to myself, you know what, there's a lot more that I could be doing, because, you know, I do, I do try and say thank you and I do try and celebrate the wins and everything, but there's just, I don't know, there's a mindset that seems like you're trying to roll this boulder uphill, that people do not want to change, and, you know, there's a lot of times when people go and they go, "Oh, wow, you know, there's a certain level of worker within the organization that they just do for the money, they don't care," and I'm like, "How soul destroying must that be?" If you're here doing something you like, why don't you go somewhere else and do something you love rather than come here? So how do you get this across to corporates?

I think that you have to say to yourself, first of all, you know, the thing about culture is culture doesn't happen by accident, it happens by intention, you have to design culture, you have to say to yourself, "What kind of service culture do we want to have in our business? You know, what would it look like? You know, how do we want our clients to speak about us, talk about us, what kind of culture do we want to have within the organization?" You have to identify that first and foremost, and then you say to yourself, "What kind of values and behaviors will underpin that culture? So what kind of things must we be doing on a consistent basis?" Because we drive the culture through behavior, behavior comes through our values. So people have to be very clear what those values are, or they have to be very clear what those behaviors are. You have to link that to the KPIs in some way or form so that you, again, you reinforce the same kind of behavior repeatedly. Unfortunately, I said to corporates as well, you know, you've got to create that culture in such a way that when you have someone else come from the outside into your business, that culture is self-existent. They have to fit into that culture. Even as you are interviewing someone into your business, you have an idea what your culture is like, and already you know whether they're going to fit into your business or not. And some people have to go. They have to work themselves out of that organization so you can have the right people in. Because the problem is that as long as the wrong people are in there with the wrong kind of attitude, you have a problem.

You have to decide what kind of culture do I want to have with my business, what would it look like, sound like, be like, how will clients speak about the brand, and then start developing that culture. What kind of values do you want to stand for, what kind of behaviors will underpin those values, and it's not holding people accountable to those values. But again, as the leader in that business, it starts with you. You have to live those values, act those values, and if you start seeing that you're living those values and acting those values out, and you're holding yourself accountable to building the business around the customer, you have very little attitude in room two. So is this the kind of thing that you would do? If I phoned you up one day and went, "Femi, I know we need to do some stuff here. We need to have an intervention. I am as a GM, a business owner, whatever the case may be. I feel I'm a little bit too close to this. I need somebody to come in and to spend time unpacking and having a look at this and helping us to form a strategy." Yes, yes. Is that the kind of thing you do? Definitely, yes. So I do give keynotes to conferences, but we do customer service strategy consulting as well. So we'd speak to your clients. We'd speak to your staff members.

We're trying to see, because I understand one thing. There's a stat that says that 80% of CEOs believe that they give great customer service experience, but only 8% of the clients believe that they do. Wow. That's a vast difference. Okay, well, now you get me worried. Just something for you to think about and chew on. So we'd have to speak to your customers and your clients, see how they perceive your service, see why they do business with you, see where they're going to go elsewhere and do business. We have to understand how do they perceive you? Where's some of the gaps? How can we plug those gaps? Speak to your staff members as well and say, "Okay, fine. What kind of strategy needs to be in place? How do we then reinforce this culture within that business to get us where we need to get to?" Okay. Wow. You have that concerned look on your face. I do. I do. Because while you're talking, I'm just going through like, "Oh, okay." So they think they do. The clients will say, "Sorry, man. You're not as good as you think you are." Well, this is the bit that I find concerning. Yeah, as good as you think you are. And generally, do you find that businesses are a bit sort of hesitant to talk to their customers and their clients?

I think sometimes you're afraid of what the customers are going to say. Well, as I'm thinking about it now, I'm thinking, "Geez, if the phone rings now and it's one of my customers, do I know what they're going to say? Am I brave enough to say, 'Give me a call right now and if you are a customer of what's involved, tell me what you really think.' Am I brave enough to do that?" And I don't think I am. Well, you see, Dave, it's not... Any feedback is great feedback. It's what we do with that matters. That's what I'm trying to say. It's what you do with the feedback. You see, clients who give you feedback, clients give their businesses feedback, that companies pay thousands of rounds for consultants to give them anyway. So clients are giving that feedback for free. So it's what you do with that feedback. And if you can actually incorporate that feedback and make that client understand this and we take that feedback very seriously and we're doing something about it, we're using that feedback to actually augment our strategy, that customer can become your biggest advocate as a result. A message just here said, "We should investigate the Japanese philosophy of Omo Tenashi." I'm not sure what Omo Tenashi is. Sounds almost like a washing power. I'm going to check it out because I know the Japanese were very good with a concept a good couple of years ago called the Just-In-Time Manufacturing, where they were taking care of stock control, stock levels, et cetera, et cetera. And they mentioned here, it's about anticipating the needs of your customer.

And that is what Apple has done, by the way, very well. It's been able to make customers anticipate their needs even before they know that they have those needs. Does Apple have done this phenomenally well? Because I am an Apple. I am. Okay. And I'll unashamedly admit it, it's all about status and everything. And people often look at me and go, "You're one of those people because I've got two phones." Two Apples. Yeah. And yet, I haven't had the best service from like an eye store that I've been to. It hasn't been brilliant, eh? I mean, I had some quite serious words a little while ago because my iPhone decided on two occasions, we're just going to fall over it. Like, not work anymore. But they've sold it that well, that I'm even prepared to forgive them and know that I've now had my, because I have the iPhone 7, that I've now had that particular one replaced twice. Sure. You know, I gloss over that. In my head, I gloss over that. I would never dream of going to a Samsung or a Nokia or something like that. Never dream of it. Because the general experience, the general value they gave you allows you to overlook. Do you understand? Those, those. You forgive them. You forgive them. You're not so much overlooked. All right. So now, you're an author as well because we're running out of time. You're an author as well. Okay. And you've written something called the Service Excellence Playbook. Now, what is that all about? Because that sounds like something I need to get my hands on.

Yeah. Well, I think it'll help. So what it does, that's not drink, wink. I think what it does, it captures all the essence, the highlights of my, of my keynotes. You know, where organizations can, it's very, it's just a sound bite and thoughts about what you can do every single day. One thing you can do a day that will change your business. You know, one thing you can do a day with your customers, with your team that will allow your business to be able to build that culture of internal service excellence. Oh, then I need it. I mean, I need it. Unquestionably, I need it. Service Excellence Playbook. Where is that available? Only through your website? Only through the website. Which is what? www.femi.com. So, femi-speaks.com. Yeah, okay. Neil is just [email protected]. Yeah. Look at that. We said it in time. It's something that's vitally important. I think you've done a fantastic job. If people want to get hold of you again, femi-speaks.com is where to get hold of you. Yeah. Also, it's not only the Service Excellence Playbook. You've written several other books as well. Is all of that available on the website? All of them, yes. All of them. All right. Well, there we go. If you'd like to get hold of me, it's quite simple. It's David@what'sinvolved.com and that's spelled W-A-T-T-S-I-N-V-O-L-V-E-D.com. One of those silly things. I thought it was such a brilliant idea, having a business that was a play on my surname. Yeah. What I didn't realize is that if you say what's involved, it's generally spelled W-H-H-E-S. My whole play on my surname, really, that one just came back and bit me in the butt. So, that's why I have to be very specific now. But what'sinvolved.com is where to go. You can find a little bit about what we do and we work a lot. With speakers, with those kinds of things, we do a lot of social media stuff. We do the video creation. I would love to hear from you. If there's anything that you'd like to hear on the show, if you'd like to be on the show, please drop me a mail. It's David@what'sinvolved.com. Love to hear from you. And then we'll certainly have a chat, try and get those people in. Fermi, thanks, mate. It's been great. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it, man. Thanks for your time. It's been awesome catching up with you again. Absolutely. So, on that note, we're up and out of here. Time for us to say cheers.

Thank you so much to each and every one of you for listening tonight. I really, really appreciate it. Fermi, thanks, mate. Thanks, mate. Thanks, David. Thanks a lot. I wish you all the best as you go forward. And I know there's going to be some amazing stuff that you're doing. David Watts on Mix 93.8.