I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
Often I find myself chasing “success” in order to find happiness with my work. Even though I know that the pursuing success or fulfillment in work does not lead to happiness. With that frame of mind happiness will always be an elusive goal. I’ll be happy when… I land that client, hit this milestone, get that recognition.
As I am preparing for my session at Circles Conference, Shawn Anchor’s TED talk on The Happy Secret to Better Work is a perfect reminder to reframe my around thinking around happiness and success. It’s not our reality that shapes us, but the lens through which we view our reality.
37signals recently added three simple links at the bottom of each customer support email—“it was great :)”, “it was ok :|” and “it wasn’t good :(”. The Happiness Report is then used to measure customer happiness not satisfaction, study the ratings to improve and provide full public transparency through their happiness site.
We strive for happiness — not satisfaction.
The customer service industry is obsessed with “customer satisfaction”. We believe that’s too low a bar. Satisfaction is not a measure of success — it’s just enough to get by. We want our customers to be happy. Happiness is success. Happiness is our goal.
Over the past few weeks I have been actively working to improve the support process for Style Hatch. Between email, the theme feedback pages, Twitter and people tracking me down and messaging me on my personal Facebook page I average close to 50 customer support requests a day. Rather than seeing the daily process as a chore I love surprising people with a fast—typically same day or less than 24 hours—and personal response. Even when you have to let someone know that “the theme/Tumblr doesn’t support/work with _______” giving them a prompt and personal response often turns them into brand evangelists.
Customer support is one of the most powerful tools in your company’s branding tool belt.
As everyone is discussing the latest technology announced today, it’s always good to put things into perspective.
Reblogged from Jarred Bishop and ckck